THE UNITED STATES BRANCH MINT.--THE WATER WORKS.--MARKETS, ETC.
The stranger should never leave the Crescent City without seeing the
Mint, where money is made as if by magic. It is situated in the old
Jackson square, between Barrack and Esplanade streets. It is a fine
edifice, having a projecting centre building with two exterior
wings. The walls are strong and thick, plastered in good imitation of
granite; the length, 282 by 108 deep. This mint was commenced in 1835,
and the whole cost of building, fencing, machinery, and furniture,
was $300,000. The yard is handsomely enclosed with iron railing on a
granite basement. You enter at a fine gate, and passing through the
first court over a block wood pavement, you ascend a flight of
granite steps, and enter in a large passage where sets a pleasant old
gentleman, who requires you to register your name and residence. This
being done, he leads the visitor among the furnaces where the smelting
is performed; then in a large room where the metal is formed into bars
of various sizes by running it through powerful iron rollers. These
bars are then cut out into coins from the size of half a dime to a
doubloon, by means of a machine something like a punch, but which
moves with great regularity, and power, and despatch. The polite old
gentleman then leads you down below, and in a remote wing stands a
man solitary and alone by the side of the most splendid and beautiful
machinery which ever was made, who puts the cut pieces of coin by
twenties into a tube which fits them exactly, and the machinery stamps
them one by one, with an eagle on one side, and the Goddess of Liberty
on the other. The untiring machinery goes up and down, and stamps
according to different sizes, from eighty to one hundred and fifty to
the minute! and they are received into a beautiful silver vase
below. Before the coin is brought into this finishing room, it is
not counted, but weighed; and after it is here impressed, it is then
weighed again. In 1838, the mint coined only the amount $40,243; 1839,
$263,650; 1840, $915,600; 1841, $642,200; 1842, $1,275,750; 1843,
$4,568,000; 1844, $4,208,500; 1845, $1,473,000. The falling off during
the last year mentioned, has been owing to the state of our foreign
exchanges being against the interests of the mint.
The chief work has consisted in the new coinage of old Spanish
dollars, French, German, and English coins. The unwrought gold is
chiefly from Alabama, and is greatly on the increase. Nothing is
charged for the coinage of pure metal. The expenses are borne by the
Government, and are annually about fifty-two thousand dollars.
A large portion of the city of Orleans is watered from the large
reservoir in the upper part of the second municipality. An iron pipe
eighteen inches in diameter, is placed in the river twelve feet below
the surface, and through this, great columns of water are continually
ascending by sixty horse power force-pumps, situated in brick
buildings on Tchoupitoulas and Richard streets. The water is carried
under ground for two hundred yards further, and forced up the
reservoir alluded to, which has been made in the manner of an
artificial mound, from the sediment of the river. The reservoir is
built on the top of the mound, and is about three hundred feet square,
walled with brick and cemented, with four apartments in it, each
having about five feet live water in them. Every month or two, the
water is drawn off from two of them, and the deposit formed six inches
deep is scraped off, and the water let in again. A pavilion in the
middle of the reservoir affords a pleasant seat, and affords you a
commanding view of the immediate neighborhood. The pumps force up
2,280 gallons per minute. The cost of the works is about $1,490,000;
expenses, $17,000; revenue, $75000. The water is distributed through
cast iron pipes from sixteen to six inches in diameter, and is sold at
the rate of three dollars per head. The daily consumption is near one
million three hundred thousand gallons.
The city of New Orleans is more abundantly blessed, according to its
extent, with good markets than any city on the continent. They may be
found in all directions, affording a great abundance of the best that
the whole Mississippi valley and the far western plains of Texas can
produce.
The great attraction to visitors is the celebrated FRENCH MARKET.
The French, English, Spanish, Dutch, Swiss and Italian languages are
employed here in trading, buying, and selling, and a kind of mongrel
mixture and jumble of each and all is spoken by the lower class in the
market. It lies on the Levee, admirably situated, and extends a long
ways. All is hurry, jostling and confusion; the very drums of your
ears ache with the eternal jargon--with the cursing, swearing,
whooping, hollowing, cavilling, laughing, crying, cheating and
stealing, which are all in full blast. The screams of parrots, the
music of birds, the barking of dogs, the cries of oystermen, the
screams of children, the Dutch girl's organ, the French negro humming
a piece of the last opera--all are going it, increasing the novelty of
this novel place. The people engaged in building the tower of Babel,
whose language was confounded and confused for their presumptuous
undertaking, never made a worse jargon or inflicted a greater blow
upon harmonious sounds, than is to be found here. While looking around
at the various commodities exposed for sale, I saw scores of opossums,
coons, crawfish, eels, minks, and frogs, brought there to satiate the
fancy appetite of the French. But what was my astonishment on seeing
a basket of five fat _puppies_ about six weeks old, which the owner
informed me were for French gentlemen to eat! In charity for the
Frenchman's taste, I have sometimes thought the vender of these little
barkers was palming a quiz upon me. I hope so.
This is an unrivalled market. Every fish that swims in the Gulf, every
bird that flies in the air, or swims upon the wave, every quadruped
that scours the plains or skulks in dens, which are usually eaten
by men, can be had in great abundance. All kinds of grain and roots
raised in the up country, all the luxuries of the tropics, are here.
The elk of the Osage river, the buffalo of the Yellowstone, venison of
Louisiana, and the bear of Mississippi, fill the list, and contribute
in pandering to the appetites of luxurious citizens.