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 NEW MILFOED NEW ORLEANS 321 purchase, was obtained from Mexico by the treaty of Dec. 30, 1853, and was annexed to New Mexico by the act of Aug. 4, 1854. The territory then contained, besides the region within its present limits, the whole of Arizona and a portion of Colorado and Nevada. The tract (about 14,000 sq. m.) E. of the Rocky mountains and between the 37th and 38th par- allels was annexed to Colorado by the act of Feb. 28, 1861. Arizona was set off by the act of Feb. 24, 1863; and by the act of May 5, 1866, the N. W. corner of Arizona was an- nexed to Nevada. The question of the ad- mission of New Mexico as a state has several times been before congress. At the close of the 43d congress, March, 1875, a bill for its admission failed to become a law. See "New Mexico, her Natural Resources and Attrac- tions," by Elias Brevoort (Santa F6, 1874). NEW MILFORD, a town of Litchfield co., Con- necticut, on the Housatonic river and railroad, 40 m. W. by S. of Hartford; pop. in 1870, 3,586. The principal village, on the left bank of the river, is neatly laid out with wide and well shaded streets, has a handsome common, and is supplied with pure water. It has a national bank, a savings bank, a weekly news- paper, a court room for the sessions of the district court, four churches, and about 25 stores. It is the centre of the tobacco trade of the entire valley, and has 10 warehouses; it also contains manufactories of paper, but- tons, and woollen cloths. NEW ORLEANS (Fr. La Nbuvelle Orleans), the capital, chief city, and commercial metropolis of Louisiana, the ninth city of the United States in point of population, nearly coexten- sive with the parish of Orleans, situated on both banks (but chiefly on the left) of the Mississippi river, 100 m. above its mouth, and 960 m. in a direct line S. W. of Washington ; lat. of custom house, 29 57' N., Ion. 90 W. The river here has a general E. and W. direc- tion. The older portion of the city is built on the left bank, on the convex side of a bend of the river, from which circumstance it de- rives its familiar sobriquet of the "Crescent City." In the progress of its growth up stream, it has now so extended itself as to follow long curves in opposite directions, so that the river front on the left bank presents an outline some- what resembling the letter S, and 11 or 12 m. in extent. The city includes, on the left bank, the town of Carrollton, formerly belong- ing to the parish of Jefferson, and the whole of the parish of Orleans, except the portion lying between Bayou Chef Menteur and the Rigolets pass ; and on the right bank, the town of Algiers. The greater portion of this region is not built up, but consists of mar- ket gardens, swamps, canebrakes, and bayous. The boundaries of the city on the left bank are : on the west, the upper line of Carrollton and the line of the old Jefferson and Lake railroad; on the north, Lake Pontchartrain ; on the east, Bayou Chef Menteur ; and on the south, Lake Borgne, Bayou Bienvenu, Fisher's or Fisherman's canal, and the Mississippi. On the right bank, Algiers is bounded N. E. by the Mississippi river and by the line of Ptolemy street, running southeasterly (nearly as a con- tinuation of Canal street on the left bank), New Orleans. and by other lines zigzagging more easterly, and terminating at Point Becka on the Mis- sissippi. That portion of the parish of Or- leans, which alone has not been included in the city consists of a series of islets called Les Petites Coquilles, from the extent to which small shells enter into the composition of their soil. These islets surround a body of water from Lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne which is called Lake Catharine. At the Pontchar- train end of the Rigolets pass, on one of these islets, stands Fort Pike; on another, at the