and 120 each on Royal and Chartres-street-the building being intended by the projectors to combine the convenience of a city exchange, hotel, bank, large ball rooms, and private stores. The principal façade, on St. Louis-street, may be generally described as being composed of the Tuscan and Doric orders. The main entrance is formed by six columns of the composite Doric order. Through this portico, access is had to the vestibule of the Exchange, a handsome, though simple hall, 127 by 40 feet. This room is appropriated to general business, and constantly open during waking hours. You pass through this into one of the most beautiful rotundas in America, which is devoted exclusively to business, and is open from noon to three o'clock P. M. This fine room is surrounded by arcades and galleries, always open to the public, (Sundays excepted,) and its general appearance cannot fail to impress upon the mind a most favorable idea of its grandeur and beauty. The dome is most tastefully laid off in compartments, within which the magic pencils of Canova and Pinoli have portrayed allegorical scenes and the busts of eminent Americans, in rich fresco; a style of painting com paratively new in the United States. The floors of the gallery which engird the rotunda, and the winding stairs leading to them, are of iron. By a side entrance on St. Louis-street, access is obtained to the second story; the front of which, on this street, is occupied by a suit of ball-rooms and their dependencies. The great ball-room is magnificent in its size and decorations. The building also has a capacious entrance on Royalstreet, as a hotel that can accommodate 200 persons. At the corner of Chartres-street are the public baths. In the spring of 1840 this building was nearly burnt down, but, in less than two years, it was completely restored to its original splendor. The Commercial Exchange. This edifice is upon the south-west corner of St. Charles and Perdido-streets, fronting 103 feet upon the former, and running 100 upon the latter. The main part of the building is constructed of brick and stuccoed; the upper portion is purely Corinthian, the lower entirely Tuscan. The principal entrance, on St. Charles-street, is by a portico supported by two Ionic pillars, and the same number of pilastres, composed of granite. The vestibule is eleven feet deep, which admits visitors by three separate doors into the exchange saloon, the most spacious apartment of the kind in the United States; it being 70 by 100 feet, and 27 to the ceiling, which is supported by twelve well arranged and substantial pillars. At the rear of this public room are two others, intended for the accommodation of auctioneers, leaving only sufficient space on the left for the necessary offices and access to the second floor. The Merchants' Exchange, fronting on Royal-street and Exchange Place, was erected by a joint stock company in 1835-6, from the designs and under the superintendence of Mr. Dakin, architect. Both fronts are of marble, in a plain and bold style. The cost of the erection was $100,000. The Merchants' Reading Room-entrance from Royal-street and Exchange Place. This reading room occupied a spacious apartment in the second story of the Merchants' Exchange, and is under the patronage and control of the company interested in that building. It is generally sup plied with most of the newspapers of the country, and has received a patronage quite equal to the extent of its accommodations. For several of the preceding paragraphs, we are indebted to a little volume published in 1845 by B. H. Norman, Esq., entitled "Norman's New Orleans and Environs," a work embracing in a small compass a brief historical sketch of the territory and State of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans, with other matters of general as well as local interest. The following table, made up with great care by the editors of the New Orleans Price Current, will give a pretty accurate idea of the extent of the internal trade of that city. It shows the quantity and value of the principal productions of the interior received at New Orleans during the year ending on the 31st of August, 1848, with their estimated average and total value. QUANTITY AND VALUE OF PRODUCE RECEIVED AT NEW ORLEANS FROM THE INTERIOR IN 1847-8. Value. Articles. 39,518 $3.00 $118,554 .hhds. and casks 925,088 ....boxes 324,200 .hhds. and tcs. 834,255 ....lbs. 15,245 ..pieces 1,009,866 ..coils 743,250 51,212 ..kegs and fir. 226,065 23,120 27,920 284,784 205,268 3,366 Buffalo robes. Cotton. Corn meal... Corn in ear. 910 35,200,345 95,086 305,749 1,192,009 157,086 Candles... 67,000 1,032 Coal, western.. 192,000 Dried apples and peaches.. 3,962 64,800 Flaxseed.. 39,537 Flour..... 3,534,790 Furs.. .hhds. bund. and boxes 410 650,000 Hemp.. ...bales 21,584 19 00 410,096 Hides.. Hay. 47,662 1 25 59,575 170,317 Iron, pig.. 21,030 Lard.... Lard.. ..bbls. and tcs. 216,031 17.00 27,540 3,672,527 910,983 126,320 Lime, western.. Lead. 14,920 1,699,504 Lead, bar... .kegs and boxes 12,292 Molasses (estimated crop). 1,920,000 Oats...... .........................bbls. and sacks 350,415 Onions.. ....bbls. 15,920 Oil, Linseed 46,540 29,975 '108,020 .... 60 303,782 3,030,080 794,035 QUANTITY AND VALUE OF PRODUCE RECEIVED AT NEW ORLEANS-CONTINUED. It will be seen that the above table gives the quantities and value of the different articles of produce received at New Orleans from the interior for the year 1847-8. In the following table we give the quantities, omitting that year, for the six preceding years :— IMPORTS INTO NEW ORLEANS, FROM THE INTERIOR, FOR SIX YEARS, FROM THE 1ST SEPTEMBER TO THE 31ST AUGUST, IN EACH YEAR. Articles. Apples...............bbls. Bacon, ass'd.casks, &c. Bacon hams.......hhds. 1846-7. 1845-6. 1844-5. 1843-4. 1842-3. 1841-2. 12,892 19,563 16,568 13,505 8,358 19,070 13,588 9,220 350,000 1,203,821 1,453,798 1,288,109 Potatoes......... ..bbls. Pork...... 302,170 Pork... .bbls. Pork, in bulk... ....lbs. 8,450,700 9,740,752 4,079,600 7,792,000 6,814,750 4,051,800 369,601 216,960 412,928 204,643 244,442 946 Porter and ale......bbls. 1,363 231 86 604 1,050 514 A passage from the annual remarks of the editors of the Price Current and Merchants' Transcript will furnish the best illustration we can give of the foregoing table : "Our records show an immense falling off in the operations in the leading articles under this head during the past year, as compared with the season ending the 1st September last. It will of course be remembered by all that a famine in Europe had produced an extraordinary demand for breadstuffs, and the consequent elevation in prices brought forth from our well-filled granaries not only the abundant product of the then current year, but also the hoarded surplus of previous seasons. It was thus that our receipts here, as well as at the other shipping ports of the country, suddenly rose to double those of the year immediately preceding, VOL. XIX.-NO. V. 33 and to an amount many fold greater than those of any previous year. The very thorough manner in which the West gave up her supplies in 1846-7, and the comparatively limited foreign demand during the past season, have carried back our receipts of breadstuffs to less than one-half what they were last year. Thus our arrivals of flour are 706,958 barrels, against 1,617,675 barrels last year; of Indian corn equal to 3,600,000 bushels, against 7,065,000 bushels last year; of wheat equal to 300,000 bushels, against 1,670,000 last year; of corn meal 47,543 barrels, against 88,159 barrels last year. The exports show a corresponding reduction. The total exports of flour amount to 472,519 barrels, against 1,319,506 barrels last year. Of this quantity 15,416 barrels have been sent to Great Britain and Ireland, 88,676 to the West Indies, &c., and the remainder to coastwise ports. Of Indian corn the total exports are equal to 3,059,000 bushels, against 6,303,000 bushels last year. Of this quantity 1,360,000 bushels have been shipped to Great Britain and Ireland, 173,000 to the West Indies, &c., and the remainder to coastwise ports. Of wheat there have been exported to foreign ports barely 35,000 bushels, nearly all of which was to Great Britain; the bulk of the receipts being shipped to the North, and a portion consumed in our city mills." The leading exports of New Orleans are cotton, tobacco, sugar, molasses, flour, pork, bacon, lard, &c. The following tables show the extent of the trade in these and other articles of export from that port for a series of years: : EXPORTS OF COTTON FROM NEW ORLEANS FOR SIX YEARS. Whither exported. 1847-8. 1846-7. 1845-6. 1844-5. 1843-4. 1842-3. Total................ 1,201,897 724,508 1,054,857 984,616 895,375 1,088,870 The recapitulation of the above statement, which follows, shows the aggregate quantity of cotton shipped to the leading commercial nations, as well as that sent to different ports in the United States, and designated as "coastwise." |