MAGNIFICENT FORESTS.

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Pennsylvania, or one in which a greater variety of mineral and botanical wealth have been concentrated into a smaller space. No portion of the whole State is level to any great extent; the extreme difference of level, however, not exceeding 1,200 feet. The whole population of the State in 1830 was 1,048,458; and their proportions in the different sections of the country may be seen by this-that in the eastern divisions, near the cities and the sea, the numbers were 77 to the square mile; in the western division, bordering on Virginia and Ohio, they were 17 to the square mile; and in the central or mountainous parts, they were only 10 to the square mile.

Of

The forests of the interior of Pennsylvania are described as magnificent, and the trees as large and as varied in their kind as on any zone of the globe of the same extent. The valleys are remarkably fertile; and grain, vegetables, and fruits of almost every kind, are grown in abundance and perfection. mineral wealth there is also a large supply; iron and coal, both anthracite and bituminous, abound, and mark out Pennsylvania as destined by nature to be a large manufacturing as well as agricultural State. Salt works exist also in several parts of the country; and fine marble, of the most beautiful colour and texture, is found so abundantly in every direction, that the principal public buildings, and several private edifices in Philadelphia, are constructed wholly of that material; while in some parts of the country, even the farm-houses are built of this beautiful stone. Public attention is sufficiently awakened to the importance of all this wealth, and especially of the iron and coal, the beds of which appear, from recent investigation,

to be inexhaustible; there is, therefore, the strongest possible inducement for capitalists to turn their attention to the working of mines of both, and establishing manufactures on the spot; more especially as the State is already intersected with rivers, canals, and rail-roads, that make the transport of materials and goods, from every part of the interior to the sea, a work of expedition and economy combined.

Already, indeed, may Pennsylvania be considered a manufacturing State. In 1836 there were seventytwo cotton manufactories, in which were embarked a capital of more than 4,000,000 of dollars, or nearly a million sterling; and they made, annually, about twenty-five millions of yards of cloth. Of iron works there were at the same time about seventy blast and air-furnaces, nearly one hundred forges, thirty rolling mills, and two hundred manufactories of nails; nearly one hundred paper-mills, twenty glass-houses, and about fifty rope-walks. The various manufactories embraced upwards of two hundred and fifty articles, and their estimated value exceeded seventy millions of dollars, or 14,000,000l. sterling.

The legislative capital of Pennsylvania is at Harrisburgh, a town of about 5000 inhabitants, at a distance of 100 miles from Philadelphia, and the same from Washington: centrality of position in the State, generally determining the locality of the capital, for the convenience of making it equally easy of access to the members of the legislature from all the different counties. The great manufacturing town of Pennsylvania, is, however, Pittsburgh, which is 200 miles west of Philadelphia, in the heart of

the iron and coal district, and which, including the suburbs, (one of which is called Birmingham,) contains a population of 20,000 persons, nearly all of whom are engaged in the manufactories of iron carried on there. The situation of Pittsburgh is such as to give it an easy communication with all the surrounding quarters; it being on a plain, between the rivers Alleghany and Monongahela, at the point of their junction to form the Ohio. By the former of these rivers, and its branches, it communicates with New York. By the latter, and a good road, it communicates with Baltimore; and by the Ohio river it communicates with all the great Western States; while its communication with Philadelphia is by canal and rail-road, as well as by ordinary roads. The estimated annual amount of manufactures in Pittsburgh alone exceeds 20,000,000 of dollars, and the merchandise passing through that city in various directions, within the same space of time, is estimated at double that amount of value at least.

There are many interesting towns and settlements of inferior importance in Pennsylvania, among which may be mentioned Lancaster, about 60 miles west of Philadelphia, in the midst of an agricultural and grazing district: Reading, in the county of Berkshire, a town inhabited chiefly by Germans, and occupied with the manufacture of hats; Bethlehem, a Moravian settlement, Lebanon, Bethany, and other spots of Scriptural nomenclature, some of them inhabited by people who speak only German, and to whom the English language is literally an unknown tongue.

Such is the progressive history, and such the present condition of this large, beautiful, and flourishing State, in which, climate, soil, and production are alike favourable to wealth and enjoyment; and where the impress of sobriety, order, industry, and improvement, originally stamped on the country by its first settlers, still continues visible, in the character and condition of their descendants; as in no part of the Union is there to be seen better agriculture, more flourishing farms, more thriving manufactories, more useful public improvements, more benevolent institutions, a more general diffusion of comfort, or a higher tone of morality, than in Pennsylvania: consequences and characteristics, of which its Quaker inhabitants may well be proud, as having sprung undoubtedly from the character and policy of their ancestors who first colonized it.

CHAP. II.

Favourable site or position chosen for the city-Original plan of the founder, William Penn-Descriptions of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers-Arrangement and names of the streetsStyle of the private dwellings, exterior and interior-Shops, hotels, and boarding-houses-Public buildings of PhiladelphiaOld State House or Independence Hall-The merchants' exchange and post-office- The banks of Philadelphia as works of art Bank of the United States- Copy of the Parthenon -Girard bank and Philadelphia bank-Corinthian-Mint of the United States-Ionic temple at Illyssus-University of Philadelphia, origin and progress-Anatomical museum, and philosophical apparatus-Girard College, origin and foundation, description of the building by the architect-The water-works at Fair Mount-Markets of Philadelphia, supplies-The Navyyard-Line-of-battle ship, Pennsylvania-View of the city on approaching it by the river.

THE position chosen for the site of Philadelphia is, like that of all the large maritime cities of America I had yet seen, remarkably beautiful and advantageous. A perfectly level piece of land, lying between the Delaware river, which bounds it on the west, and the Schuylkill river, forming its margin on the east, was the spot fixed on for this purpose by its founder. By this selection, the breadth of the city was necessarily limited to about two miles, that being the distance from stream to stream; but the northern and southern limits were not so bounded by any natural barrier; and in these directions, therefore, the city might be made to extend to any length.