Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/146

140 there twenty-five years, are still Americans. All were in operation on the same plan as those at Colima, and none making much more than expenses, owing to the high price of cotton, and the excess of manufactured goods in the market. Atamepac, we found to be, in appearance, a great college building, of cut stone, standing back about thirty rods from the road, with a double row of orange-trees, in full bearing, on either side of the wide, grassy lawn leading up to it. The others are on a similar plan, but on a smaller scale. Two more cotton-mills are being erected in the vicinity.

The paper mill, the only one in the State, belonging to Señor Palama, is an immense structure with fourteen grinding or pulp- engines; a Foudrinier machine, which makes fair, white printing and telegraph paper six feet in width, and a smaller one which makes manilla paper. The process followed is the same as with us.

They have an opera-house and theater in Guadalajara on the Plaza fronting the Palace; it was erected by the city, but is not yet finished. It has already cost three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in coin, and will require fifty thousand dollars more to finish it. It is now occupied, but has very little scenery—only a white cloth drop-curtain, and white-washed walls. The proportions are magnificent, and when finished it will seat four thousand persons, comfortably, and become one of the finest on the continent. It has five tiers of boxes, each with twenty-five separate apartments running around the entire wall. Each box, or apartment, is divided from the next by a low iron railing, and has its own distinct entrance and dressing and refreshment rooms. There are seats for eight persons in each box. Below, the parquette covers the whole floor