CHAPTER XXII.

NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN BRIDGE.NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN BRIDGE.

Arrival in Omaha.—The Missouri River.—Position and Appearance of the City.—Public Buildings.—History.—Land Speculation.—Panic of 1857.—Discovery of Gold in Colorado.—"Pike's Peak or Bust."—Sudden Revival of Business.—First Railroad.—Union Pacific Railroad.—Population.—Commercial and Manufacturing Interests.—Bridge over the Missouri.—Union Pacific Depot.—Prospects for the Future.

On the afternoon of October twenty-first, 1876, I sat in the saddle upon the eastern bank of the Missouri River, opposite Omaha, Nebraska, having that day accomplished a horseback journey of twenty-two miles, on my way from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Paul Revere, the faithful horse who had borne me all the way from Boston, declined entering the ferry boat, it being his firm conviction that rivers should either be crossed by bridges or forded. At last, being gently coerced, the horse reluctantly consented, and the muddy current of the river was soon crossed. At three o'clock I entered the city of Omaha, the half-way house across the continent, it having been a little more than five months since I dashed out of the surf, my horse's hoofs wet and dripping with the brine of the Atlantic.

Omaha lies on the eastern boundary of Nebraska, opposite Council Bluffs, on the western bank of the Missouri River, a turbulent stream, which is never satisfied with its position, but is constantly shifting and changing, and making for itself new channels. A bottom land about three miles wide stretches out between Omahaand Council Bluffs, and through this the Missouri rolls, a swift, muddy stream, slowly but surely carrying the Rocky Mountains down to the Mississippi, which, in its turn, deposits them in the Gulf of Mexico, and helps to extend our Gulf coast. The Missouri vibrates like a pendulum, from one side of this bottom land to the other; now being near one city, and then near the other. At the period of my visit its current washed the front of Omaha, leaving Council Bluffs some distance off on the opposite side; but it was already beginning its backward swing. Thus the boundary line between Nebraska and Iowa is being continually shifted, and one State is augmented in territory at the expense of the other.

Omaha is built in part upon the low bottom lands which border the river, and which may at any time be menaced by the swollen and angry stream, unless precautions are taken, in the building of high and substantial stone levees along the river front. The town lies also in part upon the table lands beyond, and is extending to the bluffs which rise still further away. Its business is chiefly confined to the lower portion, where magnificent blocks attest the prosperity of the city. Streets of substantial dwellings, and numerous most elegant private residences, with large and handsomely ornamented grounds, are discovered as one passes through the city. A striking edifice, of Cincinnati freestone, four stories high, is occupied as a Post Office and Court House. Its High School building is one of the finest in the country. When the State Government was, in 1866, removed from Omaha to Lincoln, the Legislature donated the Square and Capitol Building at the former place for High School purposes. The old Capitol was demolished, and a magnificent school buildingerected on its site, at a cost of $250,000, while other fine school edifices, aggregating in cost about $150,000 more, were erected in other sections of the city. The High School building is on the summit of a hill, overlooking a large extent of country, and has a spire one hundred and eighty-five feet high. The Depot of the Union Pacific Railroad is also a noteworthy edifice.

Omaha was first laid out in 1853, and thus named, after a now nearly extinct tribe of Indians. The first house was built, and the first ferry established in that year; and a year later the first brick-kiln was burned, and the first newspaper—the Omaha Arrow—established. Where Turner Hall now stands, in 1854 was dug the first grave, for an old squaw of the Omaha tribe who had been left by her kindred to die. Whittier's description of the growth of western cities seems particularly applicable to Omaha:—

"Behind the squaw's light birch canoeThe steamer smokes and raves,And city lots are staked for saleAbove old Indian graves."

The first Legislature of Nebraska convened in Omaha in the winter of 1854-5; and in 1856 the Capital was definitely located in that city, and the erection of the capitol building commenced. For a year or two there was a great land-boom, and city property and "corner lots" were held at fabulous prices. But in 1857 a crash came, and for a time the infant town was prostrated. However, in 1859 the discovery of gold in Colorado gave it a fresh impetus. The miners who marched in a perpetual caravan across the plains, in white-topped wagons, marked "Pike's Peak or bust," made Omaha their final starting-point, taking in at that place supplies fortheir long journey. Two years previous all who could get away from the apparently doomed town had gone to other sections, to begin anew the fight for fortune. Only those remained who were too poor to go, but these were now in luck. Fortune came to them, instead of their being compelled to undertake an ignis fatuus chase after her. At that time the business men of the city laid the foundations of their wealth and prosperity.

In 1857 the town was incorporated as a city; but up to 1867 its only means of communication with the east was by stage-coach, across Iowa, and by steamers on the Missouri, which latter ceased running in winter. In 1865 the population of the town was but four thousand five hundred persons. In 1867 the first train of cars arrived in the city, on the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. It was not long before other railroads, one after another, made it their western terminus, and its prosperity was established. Then came the Union Pacific Railroad, which started on its long journey across the plains and mountains from this point. The trade to the Pacific coast thus necessarily passed through Omaha, which became a gateway on the route, while many travelers and emigrants paused to breathe and rest before proceeding further, and to take in large quantities of supplies. In 1875 its population had increased to twenty thousand inhabitants, and in 1880 had run up to thirty thousand.

Strange as it may seem, the building of the Union Pacific Railroad has diminished rather than increased the local trade of the city. In overland times single houses sometimes traded as much as three million dollars' worth in a year; but the railroad has so dispersed and distributed business, that now none reach even half thatamount. The city, however, does an immense manufacturing business. Within its limits is located the largest smelting works in America, employing nearly two hundred men, and doing an annual business of probably not less than five millions of dollars. One distillery alone, in 1875, the year previous to my visit, paid the government a tax of $316,000; while there are extensive breweries, linseed-oil works, steam-engine works, and pork-packing establishments. The engine shops, car-works and foundry of the Union Pacific Road occupy, with the round-house, about thirty acres of land, on the bottom adjoining the table land upon which the city is built. Over one million dollars is paid out annually in these establishments, for manual labor alone, without including payments for merchandise and supplies. A notable industry is the manufacture of brick, over five millions being turned out annually from the four brick-yards of Omaha. The city is also the headquarters of the Army of the Platte, which annually distributes nearly a million of dollars.

The first postmaster of Omaha used his hat for a post office, and carried around the mail matter in that receptacle wherever he went, delivering it by chance to its owners. Twenty years later the city possessed the finest government building west of the Mississippi, while the post office receipts are to-day upwards of a million dollars annually. Hides, buffalo robes, and furs, to the value of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, are annually collected and shipped from Omaha; while two hundred and fifty thousand dollars is the extent in a single year of the sewing machine business. The Pacific Railroad ships from Omaha vast quantities of grain to the Salt Lake Valley, and brings back inreturn supplies of Utah fruit, fresh and dried. The first shipment of fruit, made in 1871, amounted to three hundred pounds. In four years the quantity had increased to nine hundred thousand pounds, and is still greater to-day. The Grand Central Hotel was the finest hotel between Chicago and San Francisco, having been erected in 1873, at a cost of three hundred thousand dollars; but it was destroyed by fire in 1878.

The visitor to Omaha will probably reach that city by means of the great bridge across the Missouri River. This bridge is two thousand seven hundred and fifty feet long, with eleven spans, each span two hundred and fifty feet in width, and elevated fifty feet above high water mark. One stone masonry abutment, and eleven piers, each with two cast iron columns, support this bridge. Its construction was commenced in February, 1869, and completed in 1872, during most of which time not less than five hundred men were employed upon it. Each column was sunk in the bed of the river until a solid foundation was reached. One column penetrated the earth eighty-two feet below low water, before it rested on the bed-rock. The approach to the bridge from the Council Bluffs side is by means of a gradually ascending embankment, one mile and a half in length. This bridge was constructed at a cost of two million six hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and brings an annual revenue of about four hundred thousand dollars. It is now, by act of Congress, considered a part of the Union Pacific Railroad, making the eastern terminus of that road really at Council Bluffs. Its total length, including its necessary approaches by embankment on the eastern shore, and by lengthy tressel-work on the western shore is nine thousand nine hundred and fifty feet, or nearly two miles.

The old depot grounds of the Union Pacific Railroad were on the bank of the river, directly under the present bridge. In order to complete the connection between the bridge and the road, a branch line, seven thousand feet in length, was laid down directly through the city, and a new, spacious and most commodious depot constructed, on higher ground. And from this depot the westward-bound traveler takes his departure for that western empire toward the setting sun, and may, perhaps, continue his journey until he has reached and passed the Golden Gate, and only the solemn immensity of the ocean lies before him.

Situated midway of the American continent, on a navigable river, which drains the northwest, and opens communication with the east and south; a prominent point on the great road which clasps a continent and unites the Atlantic with the Pacific; and at the same time a terminus for lesser roads which open up to it the trade and commerce of the interior; and on the borders of two states rich in agricultural and mineral wealth, and settled by a thrifty, intelligent and enterprising people; Omaha can scarcely fail to become the greatest city west of St. Louis. Founded but a generation ago, its business is already stupendous, though it is really but a beginning of what it promises to be in the future. As Iowa, Nebraska, and the States and Territories still further to the northwest, become more thickly settled, with their resources developed, it will form their natural commercial centre, to which they will look for supplies, and where they will find a market or a port for their produce and manufactures. With such an outlook, who will dare to limit Omaha's possibilities in the future, or say that any flight of the imagination really exceeds what the actuality may prove?

Ottawa, the seat of the Canadian Government.—History.—Population.—Geographical Position.—Scenery.—Chaudière Falls.—Rideau Falls.—Ottawa River.—Lumber Business.—Manufactures.—Steamboat and Railway Communications.—Moore's Canadian Boat Song.—Description of the City.—Churches, Nunneries, and Charitable Institutions.—Government Buildings.—Rideau Hall.—Princess Louise and Marquis of Lorne.—Ottawa's Proud Boast.

Ottawa was, in 1858, selected by Queen Victoria as the seat of the Canadian Government. When, in 1867, the British North American Possessions were reconstructed into the Dominion of Canada, Ottawa continued to be the Capital city. It was originally called Bytown, after Colonel By, of the Royal Engineers, who was, in 1827, commissioned to construct the Rideau Canal, and who laid out the town. In 1854 it was incorporated as a city, and its name changed to Ottawa, from the river upon which it stands. Since that time it has increased rapidly in population and importance, and has at the present time not far from twenty-five thousand inhabitants. It is situated on the south bank of the Ottawa River, at the mouth of the Rideau, one hundred and twenty-six miles above Montreal. The scenery around it is most magnificent, and is scarcely surpassed by any in Canada. At the west end of the city the Ottawa rushes, in a magnificent cataract, over a ragged ledge, two hundred feet wide and forty feet high, in what is known as the Chaudière Falls. Chaudière signifiescaldron, and in the seething caldron of waters at the base of the falls a sounding line three hundred feet in length has not touched bottom. Immediately below the falls is a suspension bridge, from which a most satisfactory view can be obtained. At the northeast end of the city the Rideau tumbles, in two cataracts, into the Ottawa. These cataracts are very picturesque, but are exceeded in grandeur by the Chaudière. The Des Chênes Rapids, having a fall of nine feet, are found about eight miles above Ottawa.

The Ottawa River is, next to the St. Lawrence, the largest stream in Canada. Rising in the range of mountains which forms the watershed between Hudson Bay and the great lakes, it runs in a southeasterly direction for about six hundred miles before it empties into the St. Lawrence. It has two mouths, which form the island upon which Montreal is situated. The entire region drained by it and its tributaries measures eighty thousand square miles. These tributaries and the Ottawa itself form highways for, probably, the largest lumber trade in the world. The clearing of great tracts of country by the lumbermen has opened the way for agriculturists; and numerous thriving settlements are found upon and near their banks, all of which look to Ottawa as their business centre. As these settlements increase in number and size, the prosperity of Ottawa will multiply in proportion. The navigation of the river has been much improved by engineering, especially for the transportation of lumber, dams and slides having been constructed for its passage over rapids and falls.

This immense supply of lumber is, much of it, arrested at Ottawa, where the almost unequaled water power is utilized in saw-mills, which furnish the city its principalemployment, and from which issue yearly almost incredible quantities of sawed lumber. There are also flour mills, and manufactories of iron castings, mill machinery, and agricultural implements, which give it commercial importance, and a sound basis of prosperity.

Ottawa is connected by steamer with Montreal, and by the Rideau Canal with Lake Ontario at Kingston, while the Grand Trunk Railway sends a branch line from Prescott. The Ottawa River is navigable for one hundred and eighty-eight miles above the city, by steamers of the Union Navigation Company, but there are numerous portages around falls and rapids. The last stopping place of the steamer is Mattawa, a remote port of the Hudson Bay Company. Beyond that outpost of civilization there is nothing but unexplored and unbroken wilderness. Moore's Canadian boat song makes mention of the Ottawa River:—

"Soon as the woods on shore look dim,We'll sing, at St. Ann's, our parting hymn."Ottawa's tide, this trembling moonShall see us afloat on thy waters soon."

"Soon as the woods on shore look dim,We'll sing, at St. Ann's, our parting hymn.

"Ottawa's tide, this trembling moonShall see us afloat on thy waters soon."

Ottawa is divided into Upper and Lower Town by the Rideau Canal, which contains eight massive locks within the city limits, and is crossed by two bridges, one of stone and iron, and the other of stone alone. The streets of the city are wide and regular. Sparks street is the fashionable promenade, containing the principal retail stores. Sussex is also a prominent business street. The principal hotels are the Russell House, near the Parliament Buildings; Windsor House, in the Upper Town; and the Albion, on Court House Square.

The most prominent church edifice in the city is the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Notre Dame, which is ofstone, with double spires two hundred feet in height. The interior is very fine, and contains as an altar piece Murillo's "Flight into Egypt." St. Patrick's, Roman Catholic, and St. Andrew's, Presbyterian, are also striking churches. At the corner of Bolton and Sussex streets is the imposing stone building of the Grey Nunnery, while the group of buildings belonging to the Black Nunnery is to the eastward of Cartier Square. There are, besides, in the city, two convents, two hospitals, three orphan asylums, and a Magdalen asylum, all under the control of the Roman Catholics. The Ottawa University is also a Roman Catholic institution, and has a large building in Wilbrod street. The Ladies' College, in Albert street, is a Protestant school.

But all these structures sink into insignificance when compared to the Government Buildings, which constitute the most prominent feature of the city of Ottawa. They are situated on an eminence known as Barrack Hill, which rises one hundred and fifty feet above the river, and were erected at a cost of about four millions of dollars. They form three sides of a vast quadrangle, which occupies nearly four acres. The Parliament House is on the south side or front of the quadrangle, and is four hundred and seventy-two feet long, and the same number of feet deep, from the front of the main tower, to the rear of the library. The Departmental Buildings run north from this main structure, forming the east and west sides of the quadrangle. The eastern side is five hundred and eighteen feet long, by two hundred and fifty-three feet deep, and the western side is two hundred and eleven feet long, by two hundred and seventy-seven feet deep. These latter buildings contain the various government bureaus, in the westblock being also found the model room of the Patent Office, and the Post Office. The entire structure is of cream-colored sandstone, with arches and doors of red Potsdam sandstone, and the external ornamental work of this sandstone. Its architecture is in the Italian-Gothic style. Green and purple slates cover the roof, and the pinnacles are ornamented with elaborate iron trellis work. The columns and arches of the legislative chambers are of marble. These chambers are capacious and richly finished, and have stained glass windows. The Chamber of Commons is reached by an entrance to the left of the main entrance, under the central tower, and the marble of its columns and arches is beautiful. The Senate Hall, which is entered from the right of the main entrance, contains the vice-regal canopy and throne, and a portrait of Queen Victoria. There are also full-length portraits, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, of George III, and Queen Charlotte. The Library is a circular structure, on the north front of the Parliament House, with a dome ninety feet high, and contains about forty thousand volumes. A massive stone wall incloses the fourth side of the quadrangle, and the inclosure is laid out with tree-shaded walks.

Rideau Hall, the official residence of the Governor General, is in New Edinburgh, a suburban town on the opposite side of the Rideau River, connected with Ottawa by a bridge. Rideau Hall has been for several years past the home of the Marquis of Lorne, Governor General of the Dominion of Canada, and the Princess Louise, fourth daughter of Queen Victoria. The love which the Canadians bear their Queen was most loyally manifested on the arrival of the Governor General and the Princess, his wife. Every honor was shown theMarquis which was due his official and hereditary rank; but the most extravagant marks of affection and veneration were lavished upon the Princess, who was regarded as a representative of her mother. Whenever she proceeded through the Dominion, her progress was a triumphal procession. The people crowded to catch but a glimpse of her face, or to hear the tones of her voice. She is described as an extremely affable lady, the beauty of Her Majesty's family, caring less for the traditions and observances of royalty than her imperial mother, with great native shrewdness and marked ability as an artist. She has traveled extensively throughout the dominion of Canada, having reached its extreme western limit, and crossed the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is said she does not greatly admire Canada, and proposes to spend as little time at Ottawa as possible, regarding the somewhat primitive society there as almost semi-barbaric. But when she returns permanently to the island of her birth she will go with greatly enlarged views, and a knowledge of the world, and especially of the people of the new world, which ought to constitute her an efficient counsellor in affairs of state.

The Marquis of Lorne, Governor General of Canada, is described as an extremely handsome gentleman of the Scotch type, with large literary attainments, and with a desire to conciliate the people over whom he has been sent to rule. For many generations to come it will undoubtedly be Ottawa's highest boast that it has numbered among its citizens the son of one of the proudest nobles of the British realm, and a princess of the blood.

Pittsburg at Night.—A Pittsburg Fog.—Smoke.—Description of the City.—The Oil Business.—Ohio River.—Public Buildings, Educational and Charitable Institutions.—Glass Industry.—Iron Foundries.—Fort Pitt Works.—Casting a Monster Gun.—American Iron Works.—Nail Works.—A City of Workers.—A True Democracy.—Wages.—Character of Workmen.—Value of Organization.—Knights of Labor.—Opposed to Strikes.—True Relations of Capital and Labor.—Railroad Strike of 1877.—Allegheny City.—Population of Pittsburg.—Early History—Braddock's Defeat.—Old Battle Ground.—Historic Relics.—The Past and the Present.

By all means make your first approach to Pittsburg in the night time, and you will behold a spectacle which has not a parallel on this continent. Darkness gives the city and its surroundings a picturesqueness which they wholly lack by daylight. It lies low down in a hollow of encompassing hills, gleaming with a thousand points of light, which are reflected from the rivers, whose waters glimmer, it may be, in the faint moonlight, and catch and reflect the shadows as well. Around the city's edge, and on the sides of the hills which encircle it like a gloomy amphitheatre, their outlines rising dark against the sky, through numberless apertures, fiery lights stream forth, looking angrily and fiercely up toward the heavens, while over all these settles a heavy pall of smoke. It is as though one had reached the outer edge of the infernal regions, and saw before him the great furnace of Pandemonium with all the lids lifted. The scene is so strange and weird that it willlive in the memory forever. One pictures, as he beholds it, the tortured spirits writhing in agony, their sinewy limbs convulsed, and the very air oppressive with pain and rage.

But the scene is illusive. This is the domain of Vulcan, not of Pluto. Here, in this gigantic workshop, in the midst of the materials of his labor, the god of fire, having left his ancient home on Olympus, and established himself in this newer world, stretches himself beside his forge, and sleeps the peaceful sleep which is the reward of honest industry. Right at his doorway are mountains of coal to keep a perpetual fire upon his altar; within the reach of his outstretched grasp are rivers of coal oil; and a little further away great stores of iron for him to forge and weld, and shape into a thousand forms; and at his feet is the shining river, an impetuous Mercury, ever ready to do his bidding. Grecian mythology never conceived of an abode so fitting for the son of Zeus as that which he has selected for himself on this western hemisphere. And his ancient tasks were child's play compared with the mighty ones he has undertaken to-day.

Failing a night approach, the traveler should reach the Iron City on a dismal day in autumn, when the air is heavy with moisture, and the very atmosphere looks dark. All romance has disappeared. In this nineteenth century the gods of mythology find no place in daylight. There is only a very busy city shrouded in gloom. The buildings, whatever their original material and color, are smoked to a uniform, dirty drab; the smoke sinks, and mingling with the moisture in the air, becomes of a consistency which may almost be felt as well as seen. Under a drab sky a drab twilight hangs over the town,and the gas-lights, which are left burning at mid-day, shine out of the murkiness with a dull, reddish glare. Then is Pittsburg herself. Such days as these are her especial boast, and in their frequency and dismalness, in all the world she has no rival.

In truth, Pittsburg is a smoky, dismal city, at her best. At her worst, nothing darker, dingier or more dispiriting can be imagined. The city is in the heart of the soft coal region; and the smoke from her dwellings, stores, factories, foundries and steamboats, uniting, settles in a cloud over the narrow valley in which she is built, until the very sun looks coppery through the sooty haze. According to a circular of the Pittsburg Board of Trade, about twenty per cent., or one-fifth, of all the coal used in the factories and dwellings of the city escapes into the air in the form of smoke, being the finer and lighter particles of carbon of the coal, which, set free by fire, escapes unconsumed with the gases. The consequences of several thousand bushels of coal in the air at one and the same time may be imagined. But her inhabitants do not seem to mind it; and the doctors hold that this smoke, from the carbon, sulphur and iodine contained in it, is highly favorable to lung and cutaneous diseases, and is the sure death of malaria and its attendant fevers. And certainly, whatever the cause may be, Pittsburg is one of the healthiest cities in the United States. Her inhabitants are all too busy to reflect upon the inconvenience or uncomeliness of this smoke. Work is the object of life with them. It occupies them from morning until night, from the cradle to the grave, only on Sundays, when, for the most part, the furnaces are idle, and the forges are silent. For Pittsburg, settled by Irish-Scotch Presbyterians,is a great Sunday-keeping day. Save on this day her business men do not stop for rest or recreation, nor do they "retire" from business. They die with the harness on, and die, perhaps, all the sooner for having worn it so continuously and so long.

Pittsburg is not a beautiful city. That stands to reason, with the heavy pall of smoke which constantly overhangs her. But she lacks beauty in other respects. She is substantially and compactly built, and contains some handsome edifices; but she lacks the architectural magnificence of some of her sister cities; while her suburbs present all that is unsightly and forbidding in appearance, the original beauties of nature having been ruthlessly sacrificed to utility.

Pittsburg is situated in western Pennsylvania, in a narrow valley at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, and at the head of the Ohio, and is surrounded by hills rising to the height of four or five hundred feet. These hills once possessed rounded outlines, with sufficient exceptional abruptness to lend them variety and picturesqueness. But they have been leveled down, cut into, sliced off, and ruthlessly marred and mutilated, until not a trace of their original outlines remain. Great black coal cars crawl up and down their sides, and plunge into unexpected and mysterious openings, their sudden disappearance lending, even in daylight, an air of mystery and diablerie to the region. Railroad tracks gridiron the ground everywhere, debris of all sorts lies in heaps, and is scattered over the earth, and huts and hovels are perched here and there, in every available spot. There is no verdure—nothing but mud and coal, the one yellow the other black. And on the edge of the city are the unpicturesque outlines of factories and foundries, their tall chimneys belching forth columns of inky blackness, which roll and whirl in fantastic shapes, and finally lose themselves in the general murkiness above.

The tranquil Monongahela comes up from the south, alive with barges and tug boats; while the swifter current of the Allegheny bears from the oil regions, at the north, slight-built barges with their freights of crude petroleum. Oil is not infrequently poured upon the troubled waters, when one of these barges sinks, and its freight, liberated from the open tanks, refuses to sink with it, and spreads itself out on the surface of the stream.

The oil fever was sorely felt in Pittsburg, and it was a form of malaria against which the smoke-laden atmosphere was no protection. During the early years of the great oil speculation the city was in a perpetual state of excitement. Men talked oil upon the streets, in the cars and counting-houses, and no doubt thought of oil in church. Wells and barrels of petroleum, and shares of oil stock were the things most often mentioned. And though that was nearly twenty years ago, and the oil speculation has settled into a safe and legitimate pursuit, Pittsburg is still the greatest oil mart in the world. By the means of Oil Creek and the Allegheny, the oil which is to supply all markets is first shipped to Pittsburg, passes through the refineries there, and is then exported.

PITTSBURGH AND ITS RIVERS.PITTSBURGH AND ITS RIVERS.

The Ohio River makes its beginning here, and in all but the season of low water the wharves of the city are lined with boats, barges and tugs, destined for every mentionable point on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The Ohio River is here, as all along its course, an uncertainand capricious stream. Sometimes, in spring, or early summer, it creeps up its banks and looks menacingly at the city. At other times it seems to become weary of bearing the boats, heavily laden with merchandise, to their destined ports, and so takes a nap, as it were. The last time we beheld this water-course its bed was lying nearly bare and dry, while a small, sluggish creek, a few feet, or at most, a few yards wide, crept along the bottom, small barges being towed down stream by horses, which waded in the water. The giant was resting.

The public buildings and churches of Pittsburg are, some of them, of fine appearance, while the Mercantile Library is an institution to be proud of, being both handsome and spacious, and containing a fine library and well-supplied reading room. The city boasts of universities, colleges, hospitals, and asylums, and the Convent of the Sisters of Mercy is the oldest house of the order in America. There are also two theatres, an Opera House, an Academy of Music, and several public halls.

But it is not any of these which has made the city what she is, or to which she will point with the greatest pride. The crowning glory of Pittsburg is her monster iron and glass works. One-half the glass produced in all the United States comes from Pittsburg. This important business was first established here in 1787, by Albert Gallatin, and it has increased since then to giant proportions. Probably, not less than one hundred millions of bottles and vials are annually produced here, besides large quantities of window glass. The best wine bottles in America are made here, though they are inferior to those of French manufacture. A great numberof flint-glass works turn out the best flint glass produced in the country.

In addition to these glass works—which, though they employ thousands of workmen, represent but a fraction of the city's industries—there are rolling mills, foundries, potteries, oil refineries, and factories of machinery. All these works are rendered possible by the coal which abounds in measureless quantities in the immediate neighborhood of the city. All the hills which rise from the river back of Pittsburg have a thick stratum of bituminous coal running through them, which can be mined without shafts, or any of the usual accessories of mining. All that is to be done is to shovel the coal out of the hill-side, convey it in cars or by means of an inclined plane to the factory or foundry door, and dump it, ready for use. In fact, these hills are but immense coal cellars, ready filled for the convenience of the Pittsburg manufacturers. True, in shoveling the coal out of the hill-side, the excavations finally become galleries, running one, two or three miles directly into the earth. But there is neither ascent nor descent; no lowering of miners or mules in great buckets down a deep and narrow shaft, no elevating of coal through the same means. It is all like a great cellar, divided into rooms, the ceilings supported by arches of the coal itself. Each miner works a separate room, and when the room is finished, and that part of the mine exhausted the arches are knocked away, pillars of large upright logs substituted, the coal removed, and the hill left to settle gradually down, until the logs are crushed and flattened.

The "Great Pittsburg Coal Seam" is from four to twelve feet thick, about three hundred feet above the water's edge, and about one hundred feet from theaverage summit of the hills. It is bituminous coal which has been pressed solid by the great mass of earth above it. The thicker the mass and the greater the pressure, the better the coal. It has been estimated as covering eight and a half millions of acres, and that it would take the entire product of the gold mines of California for one thousand years to buy this one seam. When we remember the numerous other coal mines, anthracite as well as bituminous, found within the limits of the State of Pennsylvania, we are fairly stupefied in trying to comprehend the mineral wealth of that State.

The coal mined in the rooms in these long galleries is conveyed in a mule-drawn car to the mouth of the gallery, and if to be used by the foundries at the foot of the hill, is simply sent to its destination down an inclined plane. Probably not less than ten thousand men are employed in these coal mines in and near Pittsburg, adding a population not far from fifty thousand to that region. Pittsburg herself consumes one-third of the coal produced, and a large proportion of the rest is shipped down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, some of it as far as New Orleans.

The monster iron works of Pittsburg consume large quantities of this coal, and it is the abundance and convenience of the latter material which have made the former possible. No other city begins to compare with Pittsburg in the number and variety of her factories. Down by the banks of the swift-flowing Allegheny most of the great foundries are to be discovered. The Fort Pitt Works are on a gigantic scale. Here are cast those monsters of artillery known as the twenty-inch gun. Not by any means a gun twenty inches in length, but a gun with a bore twenty inches in diameter, so accuratethat it does not vary one-hundredth part of an inch from the true line in its whole length. The ball for this gun weighs one thousand and eighty pounds, and costs a hundred and sixty-five dollars. The gun itself weighs sixty tons, and costs fifty thousand dollars, and yet one of these giants is cast every day, and the operation is performed with the utmost composure and absence of confusion. The mould is an enormous structure of iron and sand, weighing forty tons, and to adjust this properly is the most difficult and delicate work in the foundry. When it is all ready, three streams of molten iron, from as many furnaces, flow through curved troughs and pour their fiery cataracts into the mould. These streams run for twenty minutes, and then, the mould being full, the furnaces from which they flow are closed with a piece of clay. Left to itself, the gun would be thirty days in cooling, but this process is expedited to eighteen days, by means of cold water constantly flowing in and out of the bore. While it is still hot, the great gun is lifted out of the pit, swung across the foundry to the turning shop, the end shaven off, the outside turned smooth, and the inside hollowed out, with an almost miraculous precision. The weight of the gun is thus reduced twenty tons.

The American Iron Works employ two thousand five hundred hands, and cover seventeen acres. They have a coal mine at their back door, and an iron mine on Lake Superior, and they make any and every difficult iron thing the country requires. Nothing is too ponderous, nothing too delicate and exact, to be produced. The nail works of the city are well worth seeing. In them a thousand nails a minute are manufactured, each nail being headed by a blow on cold iron. The noise arisingfrom this work can only be described as deafening. In one nail factory two hundred different kinds of nails, tacks and brads are manufactured. The productions of these different factories and foundries amount in the aggregate to an almost incredible number and value, and embrace everything made of iron which can be used by man.

George F. Thurston, writing of Pittsburg, says, it has "thirty-five miles of factories in daily operation, twisted up into a compact tangle; all belching forth smoke; all glowing with fire; all swarming with workmen; all echoing with the clank of machinery. Actual measurement shows that there are, in the limits of what is known as Pittsburg, nearly thirty-five miles of manufactories of iron, of steel, of cotton, and of brass alone, not mentioning manufactories of other materials. In a distance of thirty-five and one-half miles of streets, there are four hundred and seventy-eight manufactories of iron, steel, cotton, brass, oil, glass, copper and wood, occupying less than four hundred feet each; for a measurement of the ground shows that these factories are so contiguous in their positions upon the various streets of the city, that if placed in a continuous row, they would reach thirty-five miles, and each factory have less than the average front stated. This is "manufacturing Pittsburg." In four years the sale and consumption of pig iron alone was one-fourth the whole immense production of the United States; and through the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and their tributaries, its people control the shipment of goods, without breaking bulk, over twelve thousand miles of water transportation, and are thus enabled to deliver the products of their thrift in nearly four hundred counties in the territory of fifteenStates. There is no city of its size in the country which has so large a banking capital as Pittsburg. The Bank of Pittsburg, it is said, is the only bank in the Union that never suspended specie payments.

Pittsburg is a city of workers. From the proprietors of these extensive works, down to the youngest apprentices, all are busy; and perhaps the higher up in the scale the harder the work and the greater the worry. A man who carries upon his shoulders the responsibility of an establishment whose business amounts to millions of dollars in a year; who must oversee all departments of labor; accurately adjust the buying of the crude materials and the scale of wages on the one hand, with the price of the manufactured article on the other, so that the profit shall be on the right side; and who at the same time shall keep himself posted as to all which bears any relation to his business, has no time for leisure or social pleasures, and must even stint his hours of necessary rest.

Pittsburg illustrates more clearly than any other city in America the outcome of democratic institutions. There are no classes here except the industrious classes; and no ranks in society save those which have been created by industry. The mammoth establishments, some of them perhaps in the hands of the grandsons of their founders, have grown from small beginnings, fostered in their growth by industry and thrift. The great proprietor of to-day, it may have been, was the "boss" of yesterday, and the journeyman of a few years ago, having ascended the ladder from the lowest round of apprenticeship. Industry and sobriety are the main aids to success.

The wages paid are good, for the most part, varyingaccording to the quality of the employment, some of them being exceedingly liberal. The character of the workmen is gradually improving, though it has not yet reached the standard which it should attain. Many are intelligent, devoting their spare time to self-improvement, and especially to a comprehension of the relations of capital and labor, which so intimately concern them, and which they, more than any other class of citizens, except employers, need to understand, in order that they may not only maintain their own rights, but may avoid encroaching on the rights of others.

Too many workmen, however, have no comprehension of the dignity of their own position. They live only for present enjoyment, spend their money foolishly, not to say wickedly, and on every holiday give themselves up to that curse of the workingman—strong drink. While this class is such a considerable one, the entire ranks of working men must be the sufferers. And while ignorance as well as vice has been so prevalent among them, it is not to be wondered at that they have been constantly undervalued, and almost as constantly oppressed.

The prosperity of the country depends upon the prosperity of the masses. With all the money in the hands of a few, there are only the personal wants of a few to be supplied. With wages high, work is more plentiful, and everybody prospers. The gains of a large manufacturing establishment, divided, by means of fair profit and just wages, between employers and employed, instead of being hoarded up by one man, make one hundred persons to eat where there would otherwise be but one; one hundred people to buy the productions of the looms and forges of the country, instead of only one; onehundred people, each having a little which they spend at home, instead of one man, who hoards his wealth, or takes it to Europe to dispose of it. It means all the difference between good and bad times, between a prosperous country, where all are comfortable and happy, and a country of a few millionaires and many paupers.

No description of Pittsburg would be complete without a reference to the Knights of Labor, which has taken the place of the old trades unions and guilds. While the latter were in existence, that city was often the scene of violent and disastrous strikes. The great railroad strike of 1877, in which a number of lives were lost, and millions of dollars' worth of property destroyed, culminated at Pittsburg, and for days the city was stricken with panic. The cause of this strike was the decision of the railroad corporation to reduce to one dollar a day the wages of a certain class of its employees, which were already too low. The cause of these strikers was just, but their methods were reprehensible. The institution and spread of the Knights of Labor has rendered such another strike an impossibility, as that Order, which has a large membership among the workmen of Pittsburg, aims to settle, as far as possible, the difficulties between employers and employees by arbitration; and its spread will, we trust, if it does not pass under the control of demagogues, eventually result in a better understanding between capital and labor, and in a recognition of the fact that their real interests are identical.

Pittsburg has no park or public pleasure ground. Its people are too busy to think about such things, or to use them if it had them. On Saturday nights its theatres and variety halls are crowded, to listen to entertainments which are not always of the best. When its people wish to visit a public park, they must cross to Allegheny City, on the west bank of the Allegheny River, where there is a park embracing a hundred acres, containing a monument to Humboldt, and ornamented with small lakes. The Soldiers' Monument, erected to the memory of four thousand men of Allegheny County who lost their lives in the war of the Rebellion, is also in this latter city, on a lofty hill near the river, in the eastern part of the city. Many of the handsome residences of Pittsburg's merchants and manufacturers are to be seen in this city, which is also famous for its manufacturing interests, and is connected with Pittsburg by five bridges. Birmingham is a flourishing suburb on the opposite bank of the Monongahela River, containing important glass and iron manufactories.

The present population of Pittsburg is 156,381 inhabitants. The first settlement upon the site of the city was in 1754, when a French trading post was established and named Fort Duquesne. On July ninth, 1755, General Braddock, in command of two thousand British troops, accompanied by Colonel Washington with eight hundred Virginians, marched toward Fort Duquesne with the intention of capturing it. When within a few miles of the fort, they were surprised by a large party of French and Indians in ambush, and Braddock, who angrily disregarded Washington's advice, saw his troops slaughtered by an invisible enemy. The English and colonists lost seven hundred and seventy-seven men, killed and wounded, while the enemy's loss was scarcely fifty. Braddock himself was mortally wounded, and died upon the battle field, and in order that his remains might not be disturbed, Washingtonburied him in the road, and ordered the wagons in their retreat to drive over his grave. Washington himself escaped unhurt, though he had two horses shot under him, and had four bullets sent through his clothes. An Indian who was engaged in this battle afterwards said that he had seventeen fair fires at Washington during the engagement, but was unable to wound him.

In 1758, Fort Duquesne was abandoned by the French, and immediately occupied by the English, who changed its name to Fort Pitt, in honor of William Pitt. As a town its settlement dates from 1765. In 1804 it was incorporated as a borough, and in 1816 chartered as a city. Its population in 1840, was a little more than 20,000. In 1845 a great part of the city was destroyed by fire, but was quickly rebuilt, its prosperity remaining unchecked.

A little less than ten miles from Pittsburg is the village called Braddock's Field, which, in the names of its streets, perpetuates the old historic associations. The ancient Indian trail which led to the river is still preserved, and the two shallow ravines in which the French and Indians lay concealed when they surprised Braddock's troops are still there, though denuded of the dense growth of hazel bushes which at that period served the purpose of an ambush. From an old oak in this neighborhood many bullets have been pried out by persevering relic hunters; while in the adjacent gardens the annual spring plowing invariably turns up mementoes of that historic event, in the shape of bullets, arrow heads, and even bayonets. A sword with a name engraved upon it has also been found.

The Pennsylvania Railroad now crosses the location of the thickest of the fight, and at the time of its construction a considerable number of human bones were dug up and reinterred, the place of the later interment being surrounded by a rough fence of common rails. Children now play where once the forces of their nation engaged in deadly warfare. The hillside, which was then pierced by bullets, is now perforated near its summit by large openings, through which emerge car-loads of coal. Thus the present and the past strike hands across the century, and modern civilization, with its implements of industry and its appliances of commerce, supersedes and obliterates the traces of savagery, and of the deadly enmity of man toward man. The sword is turned into the plowshare, and peace triumphs over bloodshed.

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