Page:EB1911 - Volume 19.djvu/549

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526
NEW MILLS—NEW ORLEANS
  


Francisco, 1889); A. F. Bandelier, Contributions to the History of the South-western Portion of the United States, being vol. v., American series, of the Papers of the Archaeological Institute of America (Cambridge, 1890); George P. Winship, “The Coronado Expedition,” in the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, 1896); W. H. H. Davis, The Spanish Conquest of New Mexico (Doylestown, Pa., 1869); P. St G. Cooke, The Conquest of New Mexico and California (New York, 1878); William E. Connelly, Doniphan’s Expedition and the Conquest of New Mexico and California (Topeka, Kan., 1907); L. Bradford Prince, Historical Sketches of New Mexico (New York, 1883); H. O. Ladd, The Story of New Mexico (Boston, 1891); Helen Haines, History of New Mexico (New York, 1891); Henry Inman, The Old Santa Fé Trail (New York, 1897); Publications of the Historical Society of New Mexico, and Gaspar de Villagrá, Historia de la Nueva Mexico; reimpresa par el Museo Nacional, con un apéndice de documentos y opúsculos (2 vols., Mexico, 1900), vol. i. being a reprint of the epic poem published in 1610 by Villagrá, a companion of Oñate in his expedition to New Mexico.

NEW MILLS, an urban district in the High Peak parliamentary division of Derbyshire, England, at the confluence of the rivers Goyt and Kinder, on the border of Cheshire, 13 m. S.E. of Manchester, on the Midland and the London & North-Western railways. Pop. (1901) 7773. Its ancient name was Bowden Middle Cale. The name of New Mills was given to it from a corn-mill erected on the Kinder in the hamlet of Ollersett, and is specially applied to the group of factories which have grown up round it. Formerly paper and cloth were the staple industries of the district, but the inhabitants of the various hamlets are now occupied chiefly in iron and brass foundries, cotton mills and print-works. A short branch of the Midland railway leads to the town of Hayfield (pop. 2614).

NEWMILNS, a manufacturing town and police burgh of Ayrshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 4467. It is situated 71/2 m. E. of Kilmarnock by the Glasgow and South-Western railway. It was made a burgh of barony in 1490 by James IV., the charter being confirmed in 1566 by Sir Matthew Campbell, the laird of Loudoun, in which parish the town is situated. Muslin- and lace-curtain making and the manufacture of mosquito-nets are the chief industries. Nearly 2 m. E. lies Darvel (pop. 3070), a police burgh and manufacturing town, with a station on the Glasgow and South-Western railway; its chief manufactures are those of lace curtains, muslins and carpets. Two miles E. rises Loudoun Hill (1036 ft.) where Robert Bruce defeated the English in 1307, and about a mile farther E. is the cairn raised to commemorate one of Wallace’s victories.

NEW ORLEANS, a city of Louisiana, U.S.A., situated almost wholly on the left bank of the Mississippi, 107 m. from its mouth, in that portion of the state which constitutes the river’s larger delta, and lying between Lake Pontchartrain (to the north and west) and Lake Borgne (to the east and south); its latitude is about 30°, nearly the same as that of Cairo, Egypt. Pop. (1910) 339,075. The city lay originally at the angle of a deep three-sided bend in the river. Into this hollow it gradually spread, the curving river front, some 9 m. long, serving as its harbour; and hence its old appellation, the Crescent City. Long ago, however, the city filled the pocket of the bend, and spreading farther along the river, now has the form of an “S.” Directly north, and still about 3 m. distant from the parts of the city proper that have advanced farthest toward it, lies Lake Pontchartrain (about 40 m. long and 20 m. wide). Lake and river are parallel to one another for many miles; the city lies on the narrow alluvial strip between. The total area included within the municipal limits is 196.25 sq. m., but the city proper covers about 40 sq. m. The larger limits are coextensive with those of the parish of Orleans, and include the district of Algiers, on the right bank of the Mississippi.

The river at New Orleans varies from 1500 to 3000 ft. in width, and its broad channel often stretches almost from shore to shore, with a depth varying frequently at short intervals from 40 ft. to more than 200 ft. Around the margins a line of wharves and shipping extends for miles on each shore. Including the suburbs of Westwego, Gretna, &c., on the right bank of the stream, there is a river frontage of more than 20 m. Gretna, the seat of Jefferson parish, McDonoghville, in Jefferson parish, and Algiers, or West New Orleans, a part of the city, are industrial suburbs on the west bank of the Mississippi, connected with the east bank by a steam ferry and with one another by electric railway. At Algiers are railway terminals and repair shops of the Southern Pacific and the Texas & Pacific; and the United States Naval Station here, which was built in 1894 (though land was bought for it in 1849), and has a large steel floating dry dock, is the only fresh-water station south of Portsmouth, Virginia, and is equipped to make all repairs.

The city site is almost perfectly level; there is an exceedingly slight slope from the river toward the tidal morasses that border Lake Pontchartrain. The elevation of the city plain is only 10 ft. above the sea, and its lower parts are as much as 10-12 ft. below the Mississippi at high flood water. About 6 m. of heavy “levees” or dykes—in some parts rising clear above the city plain, but backed by filled-in areas graded down from the shores where the traffic of the water-front is concentrated—protect it from the waters. The speed of the current reaches, in times of high water, a rate of 5 m. an hour. Along the immediate front of the principal commercial quarter, this current, losing some of its force by change of direction, deposits its alluvium in such quantities as to produce a constant encroachment of the shore upon the harbour. At its widest part this new land or batture, with wharves, streets and warehouses following eagerly after it, has advanced some 1500 ft. beyond the water-line of the middle of the 18th century.

The climate is not marked by extremes of absolute heat or cold. Only once in thirty-seven years (1871–1907) did the thermometer register as high as 102° F., and on only a few days did it register above 96°; in February 1899 the temperature was 7°, but it rarely falls below 22°. The average annual rainfall is about 58 in.

Canal Street, the centre of retail trade and street life, bounds on the south-west near the river the Vieux Carré—the old rectangle within the walls of the original city, bounded by the river, Canal, Rampart and Esplanade streets—and separates the picturesque, peaceful French (or Latin) Quarter of the north-east from the bustling business and dignified residence districts of the American Quarter, or New City, on the south-west. In the latter St Charles Avenue and Prytania Street have the finest residences, and in the former Esplanade Avenue. Just below Canal Street, in the oldest part of the American Quarter, are many of the most important or imposing buildings of the city, and some of the places most intimately associated with its history. Here are the St Charles Hotel (1894), the third of that name on the present site, all famous hostelries, and the first (1838–1851) one of the earliest of the great hotels of the country; and Lafayette Square, surrounded by the City Hall (built in 1850 in the style of an Ionic temple), the new Post Office, two handsome churches, St Patrick’s and the First Presbyterian, Odd Fellows’ Hall and other buildings. In the square are statues of Henry Clay (by Joel T. Hart) and Franklin (by Hiram Powers), and a monument to John McDonogh (1898); and in the vicinity are the Howard Memorial Library (1887, a memorial to Charles T. Howard), which was the last work of H. H. Richardson, a native of Louisiana, and the Confederate Memorial Hall (presented to the city by F. T. Howard) with Confederate relics. Two blocks away in Marguerite Place is a statue erected (1884) by the women of the city to Margaret Haughery (d. 1882), the “Orphan’s Friend,” a noble woman of humble birth and circumstances, who devoted a toilful but successful life to charities. In Lee Circle is a monument to Robert E. Lee, and facing it is the New Orleans Public Library building (1908). Just off Canal Street, at Carondelet and Gravier Street, is the Cotton Exchange (1882–1883), and in Magazine Street the Produce Exchange. The large office buildings are on Canal, Carondelet, Common and Gravier streets; among them may be mentioned the Maison Blanche, the Hennen Building, the Tulane Newcomb Building and the Canal Louisiana Bank and Trust Company Building. On Camp Street, between Gravier and Poydras, are the office buildings of the Picayune and the Times-Democrat; on Carondelet and Gravier are the wholesale cotton houses; on Poydras and Tchoupitoulas are the wholesale