Mexican Soil Research Articles

The Mexican War

The U.S.-Mexican War, although it took place more than 160 years ago, continues to shape the destinies of both the countries caught up in the conflict. For Mexico, the many problems of sharing a border with the U.S. had their origins with this war. And for the United States, the dilemmas posed by the incorporation of large populations of non-English-speaking, mestizo peoples continues to challenge the meaning of what it means to be an American. This book is a solid and useful tool for students of Latin America, who will see in this conflict a lesson of what happens when leadership gives in to ethnocentric notions of nationalism.The authors succeed in giving a clear narrative of events without overpowering us with the many details of diplomacy and war. They have done a masterful job of synthesizing the most important interpretations of the conflict, its origin, and course. They have given us valuable resources, a detailed chronology, copies of key primary documents of the period, and an annotated bibliography that is organized to help researchers.This is more than just a chronicle of the war. The authors give a good deal of background information about both the United States’ and Mexico’s political evolution prior to the conflict. The chapter discussing the Texas Revolution gives a deep background to understanding how it was that the Americans came to separate from Mexico. The writing is free from jargon and explains complicated events and their causes incisively.The authors’ goal is to look at the conflict from both American and Mexican perspectives, but this is a very difficult task for North American scholars. The problem is that the Mexican scholars’ deeply critical perspective on U.S. motives and conduct in the war does not fit readily into a narrative approach. The title of the book indicates a problem from the start. Mexican scholars would call it the “War against Mexico” or the “U.S.-Mexican War,” not the “Mexican War,” which has different implications. The stories of the Tejanos who died inside the Alamo, of the Polk-Stockton scheme in Texas, of the execution of the Haro twins in California, of the atrocities committed by the Texan irregulars who were with the U.S. Army, and of the U.S. summary execution of the Taos rebels are not in this narrative. A Mexican perspective would excoriate U.S. expansionist motives, from the annexation of Texas to the starting of the war on Mexican soil up to the forced annexation of half of its national territory. Unfortunately, the chapter on legacies does not mention the U.S. failures to live up to the Treaty of Guadalaupe Hidalgo and the loss of civil and property rights by former Mexican citizens in the United States.Several years ago, a binational discourse about the U.S.-Mexican War appeared in a two-hour PBS presentation entitled “The U.S.-Mexican War.” This program gave Mexican scholars a chance to discuss their perspectives about the war, alongside those of U.S. historians, including Chicano historians. The related Web site, with companion documents, is available for those who want a balanced view of the conflict (http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/mainframe.html). This kind of approach could serve as a framework for larger book presenting Mexican and U.S. interpretations of the war. Until then, The Mexican War will provide the interested public with a readable and factual, but ultimately one-sided, view of the conflict.

Study of a hexane-degrading consortium in a biofilter and in liquid culture: biodiversity, kinetics and characterization of degrading strains

A gasoline-degrading consortium, originating from a Mexican soil, was used to study its hexane-degradation kinetics in liquid culture and in a biofilter with mineral support. The biodiversity of the consortium depending on the culture conditions and electron and energy source (gasoline, hexane in liquid or hexane in the biofilter) was analyzed using a 16S rRNA-based approach. Significant differences between the populations were observed, indicating a probable adaptation to the substrate. Two strains, named SP2B and SP72-3, isolated from the consortium, belonged to Actinomycetes and demonstrated a high metabolic potential in hexane degradation. Even though the SP2B strain was related to Rhodococcus ruber DSM 43338(T) by phylogenetic studies, it displayed enlarged metabolic properties in hexane and other short-alkane degradation compared with the collection strain.

Analysis of Rhizobium etli and of its symbiosis with wild Phaseolus vulgaris supports coevolution in centers of host diversification.

Common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) comprise three major geographic genetic pools, one in Mexico, Central America, and Colombia, another in the southern Andes, and a third in Ecuador and northern Peru. Species Rhizobium etli is the predominant rhizobia found symbiotically associated with beans in the Americas. We have found polymorphism in the common nodulation gene nodC among R. etli strains from a wide range of geographical origins, which disclosed three nodC types. The different nodC alleles in American strains show varying predominance in their regional distributions in correlation with the centers of bean genetic diversification (BD centers). By cross-inoculating wild common beans from the three BD centers with soils from Mexico, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Northwestern Argentina, the R. etli populations from nodules originated from Mexican soil again showed allele predominance that was opposite to those originated from Bolivian and Argentinean soil, whereas populations from Ecuadorian soil were intermediate. These results also indicated that the preferential nodulation of beans by geographically related R. etli lineages was independent of the nodulating environment. Coinoculation of wild common beans from each of the three BD centers with an equicellular mixture of R. etli strains representative of the Mesoamerican and southern Andean lineages revealed a host-dependent distinct competitiveness: beans from the Mesoamerican genetic pool were almost exclusively nodulated by strains from their host region, whereas nodules of beans from the southern Andes were largely occupied by the geographically cognate R. etli lineages. These results suggest coevolution in the centers of host genetic diversification.

Phenanthrene Removal in a Selected Mexican Soil by the Fungus Penicillium frequentans: Role of C:N Ratio and Water Content

The purpose of this study was to determine the ability of the nonbasidiomycete, filamentous fungi Penicillium frequentans, isolated and grown on sugar cane bagasse pith, to remove phenanthrene in a solidstate culture. Additionally, the study investigated whether phenanthrene removal could be enhanced by manipulating the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio (C:N) and moisture content over a relatively short-term period (29 days). To evaluate the combined effect of moisture content and the C:N ratio, a combined experimental design, composed with a 22 factorial and both central and axial points, was used. It was shown that the moisture content (p < 0.0003) and the combined effect of moisture content and C:N ratio have a significant (p < 0.002) positive effect on the phenanthrene removal. It was also found that heterotrophic activity was not correlated to phenanthrene removal. An optimum phenanthrene removal efficiency of 74% was realized at a moisture content of 40% and a C:N ratio of 60. This suggests that Penicillium frequentans was able to effectively remove phenanthrene in a solidstate culture and that the combination of nutrient addition and moisture adjustment could enhance the phenanthrene removal activity.

INTER-LABORATORY COMPARISON OF PLANT ANALYSIS ACCURACY IN MEXICO

Laboratories seeking accreditation based on norm ISO 17025 are requested to satisfy several requirements such as: traceability of measurements (i.e., the use of certified reference material linked to SI units), participation in inter-laboratory comparison or proficiency testing programs, and determination of the uncertainty of the measurements. One of the objective of the present work was to evaluate the accuracy of analytical measurements conducted by Mexican soil and plant analytical facilities, using certified reference material as recommended by the metrological methods. The statistics used to evaluate the accuracy was the Mean Square Error as recommended by The Mexico's Metrological National Center (CENAM). Most laboratories did not produce reliable results. It is important to have long term programs like this and more reference materials available to achieve better accuracy. The results of the intercomparison exercises allowed to identify the laboratories that generate reliable results.

Las hormigas del suelo en México: diversidad, distribución e importancia (Hymenoptera: Formicidade)

Se presenta la síntesis de la diversidad taxonómica y funcional de tas hormigas del suelo en México, su distribución y principales patrones ecológicos. La formicofauna del suelo comprende 407 especies y subespecies, siendo Myrmicinae la subfamilia más diversa con 53% del total. Myrmicinae domina las áreas tropicales del país, mientras que Formicinae las zonas templadas. Se encuentran especies de géneros neotropicales, neárticos, pantropicales, holárticos y cosmopolitas. Los géneros más diversos son Pheidole (51 spp), Neivamyrmex (37) y Lepthotorax (21). Las comunidades más ricas están en las selvas tropicales altas y medianas y las más pobres en los matorrales áridos y los bosques templados. La región del Este y Sureste es la más diversa con 56% del total de especies, mientras que la Península de Baja California con solamente 30 especies, es la región con mayor número de endemismos (40%). Veracruz es el estado más rico seguido de Chiapas y Nuevo León; los de menor diversidad son el Estado de México, Querétaro y Tlaxcala. El gremio trófico predominante es el de las omnívoras (44% de las especies), ocupando las depredadoras el segundo lugar (30.5%). En los sitios perturbados existe mayor abundancia y biomasa, pero menor diversidad y la comunidad está dominada por unas cuantas especies. Se discute el papel de las hormigas en los agroecosistemas y se enfatiza la necesidad de completar el inventario de las especies de México, de evaluar sus efectos en el suelo y de implementar estudios encaminados a su manejo.

Wonderful things : artifact and argument in the Brooklyn Museum's "Converging cultures"

Wonderful Things: Artifact and Argument in the Brooklyn Museum’s “Converging Cultures” Lonn Taylor (bio) Converging Cultures: Art and Identity in Spanish America. Diana Fane, Sarah Faunce, and Kevin Stayton, curators; Rod Faulds, designer. The Brooklyn Museum. Converging Cultures: Art and Identity in Spanish America. Edited by Diana Fane. New York: The Brooklyn Museum in Association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1996. 319 pages. $65.00 (cloth). $34.00 (paper). When archaeologist Howard Carter broke through the doorway to King Tut’s burial chamber, his patron Lord Carnarvon, who was standing behind him in the narrow passage, asked him what he could see. “Wonderful things,” Carter replied. These words describe the contents of the Brooklyn Museum’s new exhibit of Spanish Colonial art with equally apt succinctness. While the objects in the exhibit have not been buried quite as long as those that Carter excavated, most of them have been safely at rest in the less frequented storage areas of the Brooklyn Museum since 1956, when the museum’s last exhibit of Spanish Colonial art was dismantled and its contents distributed among four separate departments of the museum. Now they have reemerged, and, in combination with a few [End Page 138] loans from other museums, have been reassembled by a team of curators, conservators, and scholarly advisors into a dazzling exhibit about the artistic and artisan achievements of the viceroyalties of Peru and New Spain from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. The subtitle of the exhibit, “Art and Identity in Spanish America,” provides the theme and thus a clue to the argument that accompanies the exhibition of these magnificant artifacts: since their origins were in a place and time where highly developed civilizations came together for the first time, how do these objects relate to “the issues of identity that were of concern to colonists and native peoples alike?” In other words, how Spanish is the art and architecture of Spanish America, and how Indian is it? This is not the first exhibit of Spanish Colonial art to raise this question, and it surely will not be the last. Indeed, Converging Cultures takes its place on a long continuum of exhibitions that have wrestled with the question of mestizaje, or the mingling of European and Spanish peoples in the Americas. The first major exhibit to deal with the subject was Mexican Arts, organized by Rene d’Harnoncourt for the American Federation of Arts in 1930. In many ways Mexican Arts was a prototype for many of the exhibits that followed, although its extreme stance was tempered somewhat in the subsequent shows. It was assembled with the cooperation and the vigorous participation of the Mexican government and the government-sponsored Mexican art establishment; its chief American patron was Ambassador Dwight Morrow; its distinguished advisory committee included Diego Rivera, Dr. Atl, and the Mexican Minister of Finance Luis Montes de Oca; it opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and travelled to Boston, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Washington, Milwaukee, Louisville, and San Antonio; and like many subsequent exhibits it had a political subtext. It was intended to help repair a relationship that had been strained by the Mexican government’s expropriation of American-owned oil and agricultural properties during the preceeding decade. Mexican Arts took an uncompromisingly indigenist stand, reflecting the intellectual and political climate of the 1910 revolution in Mexico, a revolution that was still unfolding when the exhibit opened: art in Mexico received its vitality from its Indianness, rather than from any European styles or models. In fact, the opening sentence of d’Harnoncourt’s catalogue essay stated unequivocally that “This is an exhibit of Mexican arts, not of arts in Mexico.” Mexican arts, he explained are “such works of art as are an expression of Mexican civilization”; all “unassimilated copies of foreign models must be disregarded for the purposes of this exhibition.” [End Page 139] Many objects produced in Mexico in the past have been of “indubitable artistic merit but with no possible relationship to the cultural arts of the country.” They are, in fact, only “the results of foreign arts accidentally practiced on Mexican soil.” Concrete examples of such objects, d’Harnoncourt wrote, were the blue-and-white ceramics...

Observations on some Mexican species of the genus Tillandsia L. (Bromeliaceae)

Summary On Mexican soil, during a scientific expedition the aim of which was to investigate the biology of Bromeliads, the authors gathered samples of six species of Tillandsia genus. From these saples the authors made taxonomic profiles integrated with the information derived from odservations made in the field regarding: the relationship between the epiphyte and the host; the cohabitation among the epiphytes and the microenvironment of each species. Original drawings accompany the text.

Myxobacters from Arid Mexican Soil

Myxobacters were found to be common inhabitants of the arid soils from the Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, area. Thirteen species of the genera Myxococcus, Archangium, Cystobacter, Stigmatella, Polyangium, and Chondromyces were isolated on a mineral salts agar supplemented with bakers' yeast and filter paper. Greater species diversity per soil sample was found in the region receiving 400 to 800 mm of annual rainfall as compared with soils from an area having only 200 to 400 mm of rainfall.

The Skirmish of Picacho

The author, a recent doctoral graduate of Louisiana State University, is working on a study of the Confederacy in the Southwest. He ? Assistant Professor of Social Science at Arkansas Agricultural and Mechanical College. The Skirmish of Picacho MARTIN HARDWICK HALL at the outbreak of the civil war New Mexico was a vast territory which consisted roughly of the present-day states of Arizona and New Mexico. For several years the people living in the Gadsden Purchase area, commonly called Arizona, had been unsuccessfully agitating for separate territorial status.1 Within a few weeks after the formation of the Confederate States of America, the Anglo-Saxon element of Arizona, largely Southern in origin,* held "secession" conventions in Mesilla and Tucson. Both bodies voted in favor of separation from New Mexico and attachment to the newly created Confederacy.8 During the first week of July, 1861, Lieutenant Colonel John R. Baylor, commanding a detachment of about 375 mounted men, occupied Fort Bliss, Texas, for the Confederacy. Forty miles to the north, in New Mexico, lay Fort Fillmore, which was held by a much larger force of Union troops. In a brief campaign, Baylor succeeded in capturing the whole enemy garrison , thereby bringing practically all of southern New Mexico under Confederate military control.* Shortly, Baylor gave expression to the desires of the populace by creating the Confederate Territory of Arizona. In anticipation of approval from Richmond, Baylor assumed the office of governor and designated Mesilla the territorial capital.5 1 Hubert H. Bancroft, History of Arizona and New Mexico, /530-/888 (San Francisco: The Hickory Co, 1889), pp. 504-8. 2 Loomis M. Ganaway, New Mexico and the Sectional Controversy, 1846-1861 (Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, 1944), pp. 107-8. s Bancroft, op. cit., p. 511; Mailla [N. Mex.] Times, March 30, 1861. * Baylor to Washington, September 21, 1861, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1880-1901), Ser. I, Vol. 4, pp. 16ff.; hereinafter cited as O.R., followed by the series number in roman numerals, the volume number In arable, the part number (¡f any), and the page, as O.R., I, 4, pp. 16ff. 8 Proclamation to the People of the Territory of Arizona, August 1, 1861, OJJ., Ì, 4, pp. 20-21. 27 28MARTINHARDWICKHALL Baylor's campaign proved to be only a preliminary, for Confederate plans soon called for far more than just the annexation of Arizona. During the month of December, 1861, General Henry Hopkins Sibley arrived with a brigade of mounted troops.6 His immediate objective was to defeat the remaining Union armies in northern New Mexico and to bring all the territory under Southern authority. But he did not intend to stop here, for his ultimate aim was the conquest of California. Sibley knew that there were many in southern California who espoused Confederate sympathies. He believed that once he secured New Mexico (and possibly Colorado), his army could easily penetrate southern California. With his brigade augmented by volunteers from that quarter, he felt that he would be able to overcome the Federal forces in the northern part of the state.7 It is true that Sibley's plan was largely visionary, but the importance of conquering California for the Confederacy goes without saying. * * * General Edwin V. Sumner, the Union commander of the Department of the Pacific,8 was concerned about internal dissension in California, for apparently a large portion of the population of the southern part of that state was pro-Confederate. As a security measure Sumner saw to it that many of the volunteer military units which were being raised in the north were stationed in that "disaffected" area.9 Meanwhile, the Union high command in Washington instructed Sumner to raise an expeditionary force in California which would embark from San Francisco, proceed by water to Mexico, and then march overland "to regain the public property in . . . [Texas] and draw off insurgent troops from Arkansas, Missouri," and elsewhere .10 Permission to cross Mexican soil was obtained from the national Mexican government and from the governors of the states involved.11 As Sumner was in the midst of carrying out...

The Condition of the Poor in Mexico, 1834

M /[1zEXICAN independence opened a new vista to the fast rising industrial classes in Britain. Eager investors early sought to tap the riches of the erstwhile kingdom of New Spain. British mining company agents were well established on Mexican soil as early as 1824, although recognition did not come until 1825. The British Foreign Office, openly seeking Mexican trade advantages, instructed its diplomatic representative, Henry George Ward, and its consuls, to procure accurate information on the social, economic and political conditions in Mexico. These representatives assiduously collected and compiled a vast amount of important data drawn from many parts of the Mexican Republic.' The commercial excitemeiit over Mexico stimulated a desire for accurate information on Mexican conditions and a concerted effort was made by British governmental agencies to assemble such data. Parliament, the Board of Trade, the Home Office and other official bodies applied to the Foreign Office as a logical source. Reports on social conditions in many parts of Mexico, information on mining, trade statistics and other data collected make the British consular and diplomatic dispatches a veritable Potosi for the economic and social historian. The document here reproduced is a good example of the material to be found in these dispatches. But the document is more than an example. It is, in itself, a survey of Mexican social conditions in 1834. Biased, and somewhat myopic though the viewpoint expressed in it may be, the document represents one of the few attempts to answer a basic question: how did the working people live? Actually, we know very little about how they lived. Few monographs deal with the subject. But until this * The author is a meinber of the departmeint of history, Uiniversity of Califorinia, Los Angeles. 1 Henry George Ward to George Canning, Mexico, Oct. 21, 1826, Public Records Office, London, Foreign Office, Section 50, Vol. 24 (cited hereinafter as PRO, F0 followed by the appropriate section and volume number), Microfilm, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. All of the dispatches cited are from the Bancroft Library microfilm collection with the exception of the document itself.

Tannenbaum: Mexico, the Struggle for Peace and Bread

Before I undertake a detailed discussion of Mr. Tannenbaum's book, let me say at once that it is, in my opinion, the most thoughtful appraisal yet to appear of the accomplishments of the Mexican Revolution,' made by an expert and long-proven friend of Mexico. (Revolution is to be understood here in its present Pickwickian sense as the official program of the Mexican government.) is a melancholy and, indeed, a heart-breaking book and must have cost its author considerable anguish, for Mr. Tannenbaum was one of those who saw in the Mexican experiment some hope for a world which was strangling in the Great Depression. In his earlier Peace by Revolution he did not, to be sure, rise to the lyric heights attained by Mr. Stuart Chase, but he did see a managed economy in the making, the blueprint of a New Deal, and he and all generous spirits wished Mexico well. While still wishing Mexico well, he now comes to examine the results of the Revolution with sober detachment. The cumulative effect of his examination is vastly depressing and gives one a feeling of helpless defeat in the face of insuperable difficulties. One gathers that the efforts of the Mexican government, not, indeed, to cure the ills of the country, but merely to palliate them, have uniformly broken against the overwhelming fecundity of the Mexican people and the rebellion of the Mexican soil. This is William Vogt's thesis and it is well to keep it in mind, for the book is so packed with pertinent information and intelligent analysis that one needs a guiding principle of some sort. The compactness of the book and the author's need for saving space against later and more important matters have led him here and there to sweep things together in generalizations which invite exceptions, Ilis description of the landscape and people of Mexico makes good sense, but on page 18 he lapses into the mood of his earlier works with: It would seem almost as if the attempt [of the conquest] was to strip the Mexicans of their psychological continuity as a people. The Spaniard denied the Indians their gods, their art, their writing, their temples, their law, their morality, and their ethics. Mr Tannenbaum is aware, of course, that all these denials were partial and in varying degrees.

The United States, European, and West Virginia Land and Mining Company

AMONG THE MILITARY MEN OF MEXICO, General Jose Maria de Jesiis Carvajal was one of those most interested in securing foreign enlistments for the aid of President Benito Juirez against the French. Toward the middle of the year 1864, he solicited authorization to enlist foreign troops for service in Tamaulipas.' He was given permission to engage from one to ten thousand men and to purchase a quantity of arms and munitions. The state and national revenues of Tamaulipas were to be hypothecated as guarantee for payment. Carvajal was empowered to offer interest at the rate of 6 per cent a year, more or less, until the purchases were paid for. Under the same guarantees he was given permission to contract a foreign loan sufficient to cover the resultant expenses, including transportation of the troops of Mexico and payment of their salaries for one or two years. He was specifically instructed to obtain a loan proportionate to the number of men enlisted. The powers conferred on Carvajal were to cease on November 12, 1865. This was the sole authorization given Carvajal for his acts of the next three years. In his attempts to secure a loan, he chose to ignore the restrictions placed on his work. His instructions were clearly designed to provide for the organization and equipment of a force of men on Mexican soil. They limited Carvajal as to the time, area, and extent of his operations. That he was expected to remain in Mexico was made evident in another way. He was appointed governor of Tamaulipas to replace General Juan N. Cortinas who had apparently relinquished the position and left the state. Despite his instructions Carvajal came to the United States and undertook to obtain a loan for the Mexican

The Colorado River Development

The Colorado River and its tributaries constitute one of the greatest potential assets of the United States. Already serving more than 2 000 000 acres of farm land with irrigation water, it will eventually serve treble that area. It drains parts of seven States and flows for more than 100 miles on Mexican soil. Before the building of railroads, it was navigated for more than 400 miles, and although now mainly abandoned by navigators, it is still navigable. This, and its interstate and international character, makes its problems peculiarly national.