Ramsey & Carmick, contract.: Letter from the Postmaster General transmitting copy of a conditional mail contract; also copies of correspondence relative to the sameVarious
History
Ramsey & Carmick, contract.: Letter from the Postmaster General transmitting copy of a conditional mail contract; also copies of correspondence relative to the same
Various
Postal service -- United States -- History -- Sources
From the fact that the current of foreign travel has been turned towards
the capital of Mexico, by the way of Jalapa and Perote, and also from
the further fact that the very _limited amount of American_ knowledge of
Mexico is associated with the line of operations of the American army
during the late war, less is publicly or _correctly_ known of our lower,
or more southern route, than of the upper or northern route. The lower
and shorter route presents the facilities of being six hours shorter
to Puebla, and of having lower grades, and a climate unequalled for
healthfulness, salubrity, and intertropical luxuriance of productions.
There are features about the roads of Mexico generally that distinguish
them from our northern roads; they are not muddy, having no frosts to
produce periodic deterioration; they are only slightly disturbed during
the rainy months of June, July, and August. The rains during these rainy
months are not continuous, all-day rains, but fall in showers seldom
longer than an hour, generally in the afternoons and at night, and the
intervals between these showers are unclouded and salubrious. The whole
geological formation of Mexico is eccentric, and the soil generally
composed of the debris of matter of volcanic origin. Such materials
form the best roads, and with an exemption from frosts, dust, mud, and
rain, except in the rainy seasons, and with no fences to obstruct the
facilities for turnpike, road-making, and travelling, presented in this
part of Mexico, are unequalled.
It should be remembered that this company are not encumbered with the
necessity of enormous expenditures for making canals, building railroads
and plank-roads, to develop their resources; they have only to expend
under $50,000 to make one of the finest roads in the finest climate of
North America, to travel smoothly and pleasantly, at the rate of seven
and ten miles per hour, from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean.
From the certificate of Mr. Blumenkron, (see Appendix A,) a gentleman
intimately acquainted with the whole route from personal observation,
it will be seen that the facilities for the transportation of mails
and passengers across the republic is the work of but little effort
and expense; and from the extracts of Colonel Ramsey’s letter, (see
Appendix B,) it will be seen what has actually been done. From these
statements—and they are daily corroborated by Americans and Mexicans who
have passed over the route—it appears that the mails have been carried
over (at the worst of all seasons, the rainy ones) in 50, 60, 70, 80,
and 81 hours; that the letter of Mr. Tyler announces their arrival at
Acapulco in six days from New Orleans, and that the mail time across may
be reduced to 48 hours, and passenger time to 54.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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