Mineral Point Tribune

The Mexico Cathedral.

The interior of the grand cathedral in the City of Mexico is, even at the present day, after having been successively plundered, most magnificent. It contains five naves, six altars, and fourteen chapels, which contain the bones of some of the viceroys and departed great men of Mexico.

A balustrade surrounds the choir, of a metal so rich that an offer to replace it with one of equal weight in solid silver was refused. This weighs twenty-six tons, and came from China in the old days of Spanish dominion, when the richly freighted galleons of Spain sent their cargoes overland from Acapulco to Vera Cruz on the way to the mother country.

The high altar was formerly the richest in the world, and yet retains much of its original glory. It contains candlesticks of gold so heavy that a single one was more than a man could lift, chalices, cruets, and pyxes of gold incrusted with precious metals, studded with emeralds, amethysts, rubies, and diamonds.

The statue of the Assumption (now missing) was of gold, ornamented with diamonds and is said to have cost $1,000,000. There was a golden lamp valued at $70,000, which it cost at one time $1,000 to clean, but according to a French writer—and the joke is his—the liberal troops cleaned it for nothing, and it has not been seen since.