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SODA AND MINERAL WATERS-One of the small industries of Mobile is the soda, mineral and seltzer water manufacturer of E. Carre, on Franklin street, near Dauphin.  It was established in 1868.  Mr. Carre was the pioneer in the introduction of seltzer in syphon bottles, and the first importer here of these bottles from Paris.  His establishment has the most approved machinery, such as generator and fountain, which occupy no in considerable space and cost about $3000.  Its capacity will enable him to turn out two hundred dozen bottles of waters a day, about enough to supply the city of New York.  His business gradually extends and enlarges.

He can successfully compete in this manufacture with New Orleans or New York, and can make better soda water than either of these cities.  One reason for this is that he has a well thirty feet deep and sixteen feet in diameter, which contains sulphate of magnesia in large proportions.  Knowing their mineral properties, Mr. Carre can make to order Kissengen and other waters in their purity.

It is a small industry, but the proprietor has $26,000 invested in his business, and his sales last year amounted to between $25,000 and $26,000.  For the bottles with the patent stoppers that push in, he pays a royalty of $1,000 a year, and each bottle costs him twenty cents.  He makes shipments to New Orleans, points on the lines of the New Orleans and Mobile railroad, the Mobile and Ohio railroad and the Mobile and Montgomery railroad.

For the transportation of soda and mineral waters about the city, Mr. Carre uses a box invented by William O. Pond and patented, which secures the bottle in a firm position.  For the country transportation he uses a patent case, also made in Mobile, which holds six dozen bottles.

It takes four wagons for the delivery of his manufactured waters to customers in the city and to railroad depots.  As he believes in encouraging home industry, Mr. Carre has his boxes and wagons made in Mobile, even though for the latter the cost is greater than the same vehicle from northern builders.  The best materials are used in the manufacture of soda, mineral and seltzer waters, and the extra expense is reimbursed to him by the reputation he enjoys as an honest manufacturer and honorable dealer.