PITTACU8 



PITTSBURGH 



207 



Copjrighl 181, 1887, nd 

 1900 iu the I . 8. !>v J. B. 

 Llpplncotl Company. 



PittaCUS, one of the 'Seven Wise Men' (q.v.) 

 of ancient Greece. 



Pittenweem, a small seaport of Fife, a royal 



burgh (St Andrews 



rail, with fisheries, 

 i-century priory. Pop. 



(1891) 1962. 



Pittsburgh, officially spelled PITTSBURG, the 

 second city ol Pennsylvania, is located at the junc- 

 tion of the Alleghany and Mo- 

 nongahela rivers, which here 

 unite to form the Ohio, and ex- 

 tends along each of these rivers from five to ten 

 miles. It is by rail 444 miles from New York, 354 

 from Philadelphia, and 468 from Chicago. Around 

 Pittsburgh are more than a dozen municipalities 

 some of them so close that the dividing line can 

 hardly be distinguished whose interests are in all 

 respects identical. Alleghany, on the north bank 

 of the Alleghany River, has a population of 129,895 ; 

 McKeesport, on the Monongahela, 34,227 ; Brad- 

 dock, 20,000 ; while Homestead, Wilkinshurg, Du- 

 quesne, Carnegie, Sharpsburg, and other places 

 range from 10,000 to 15,000. The business portion 

 of Pittsburgh is on a plain less than a mile in 

 width, along the river banks, while the hill-, com- 

 manding delightful views, are covered with hand- 

 some residences. In this region, where the prevail- 

 ing soft shales and sandstones have been worn 

 away by the rivers to a depth of 500 or 600 feet, 

 the horizontal layers of coal are exposed, and 

 access afforded to the coal seam on the sides of the 

 hills and at the bottom of the valleys to an extent 

 elsewhere unknown ; the great Pittsburgh coal 

 layer, 8 feet thick, like a broad black band extends 

 around the city, 300 feet above the river. This 

 coal, which adds so much to the prosperity of 

 Pittsburgh, is unequalled in quality for metal- 

 lurgical purposes and is easily accessible, partic- 

 ularly on the Monongahela, where for 100 miles the 

 coal outcrops on its banks and is easily transported 

 by barges down the Ohio to Cincinnati, Louisville, 

 New Orleans, and other river ports. Eighty tow- 

 boats and thousands of barges, boats, and fiats are 

 engaged in the coal trade. In 1894 the coal tonnage 

 of the Monongahela alone equalled 4,417,132 tons. 

 The same year nearly 8,000,000 tons passed down 

 the Ohio, which amount, added to that sent away 

 by rail or consumed in the city, fully equals two- 

 thirds of the yearly output of Bituminous coal for 

 the entire state. On the Monongahela is the cele- 

 brated coke region, where 18,608 ovens produced 

 in 1897 6,915,052 tons of unequalled coke. 



Pittsburgh's manufactures include everything 

 .which can be made of iron, from a 58-ton gun to 

 nails and tacks ; steel iti it.s various applications ; 

 all descriptions of glass and glassware; silver and 

 nickel-plated ware; Japan and Britannia ware; 

 pressed tin, brass, bronzes ; earthenware, crucibles, 

 fire-pots, bricks ; furniture, wagons, and carriages; 

 lirushes, bellows, mechanical supplies of all kinds; 

 natural-gas fittings, tools for oil and gas wells, 

 &c. The city and immediate vicinity contain 

 twenty-six blast-furnaces, sixty-two rolling-mills 

 fur iron and steel, forty-nine iron-foundries, two 

 mills fur rolling copper, and a dozen manufactories 

 of white lead, leaa paint, lead pipe, and shot. Of 

 glass-factories there are thirty-four where window 

 glass in made, thirty-seven for flint and lime glass, 

 N-ri for lamp-chimneys, five for green bottle-glass, 

 and fifteen for prescription vials. The three largest 

 plants in the world for the manufacture of wrought- 

 iron pipes are located here, besides five others of less 

 capacity. Ten separate companies with one direct- 

 ing head -for manufacturing air-brakes, automatic 

 signal-*, e.leetrir lij,'litaw>aratus, arid supplying heat 

 ami light have a combined capital of $40,000,000. 



The Carnegie Steel Company, Limited, with a paid- 

 up capital of 825,000,000, manufactures steel rails, 

 billets, armour-plate, &c. The incandescent lamp 

 has been brought to the greatest state of perfection 

 in this city. The petroleum fields around Pittsburgh 

 produced in the past four years 67,905,478 barrels of 

 the highest grade of oil. 



The position of Pittsburgh on the eastern border 

 of the great Mississippi river-basin and her facili- 

 ties for penetrating to every part by river and rail 

 give her great natural advantages for trade and as 

 adepotfor exchange and trans-shipment of the pro- 



duce that naturally comes to her as a centre. Four 

 lines of packets ply on the Monongahela and four 

 on the Ohio. Fourteen distinct railroads centre 

 here. The immense volume of trans-continental 

 business passing through Pittsburgh annually i 

 probably excelled by that of no other city except 

 Chicago. Exclusive of freight in transit, the ascer- 

 tained tonnage handled in 1897 was by rail 36,679,415 

 tons, and by river 7, 318,366 tons, which is by far the 

 greatest tonnage of any city in the United States 

 if not in the world. Pittsburgh has thirty-one 

 national banks and twenty-six state banks, with a 

 total capital and surplus of $34,278,000. The city 

 possesses a good system of public schools, is the 

 seat of a Catholic college, the medical, law, dental, 



: and pharmaceutical departments of the Western 

 University of Pennsylvania, a college for women 

 beautifully located with extensive grounds and fine 

 buildings and a number of preparatory schools and 

 academies. The Carnegie Institute, to which Mr 

 Andrew Carnegie has already donated two and a 

 half million dollars, stands at the entrance to Schen- 

 ley Park, and contains a large music hall, an art 

 gallery, a library, and a museum. In the same 

 park, a short distance from the Carnegie buildings, 

 is the Phipps" Conservatory a gift of Mr Henry 

 I'hipps, originally costing $110,000, filled witii 

 flowers and plants from every clime. In Highland 

 Park is the zoological building, costing $100,000, 

 the gift of several public-spirited citizens. The 

 principal parks are the Schenley a gift from Mrs 

 Mary E. Schenley located in the heart of the city, 

 Herron Hill Park, which commands an extensive 

 view, and Highland Park, beautifully located on 

 the banks of the Alleghany River. The three rivers 

 are crossed by fifteen bridges, some of them monu- 

 ments of engineering skill ; the heights within the 

 city are reached by eleven inclined railways for 

 freight and passengers, and all parts of the city 

 and suburhs are easily reached by lines of electric 

 cars. 



Hilton/. In the early history of America the 

 site of Pittsburgh was a point of great interest, and 

 was familiarly known as the 'Gateway to the 

 West.' Here traders, settlers, and adventurers, 

 who had worked their way from Philadelphia by 

 a chain of forts, congregated, and here flat-boats 

 were built which carried them down the Ohio to 

 the unknown regions beyond. In 1754 a few Eng- 

 lish traders built a stockade at the point, but were 

 driven away by the French the following April. 

 The latter replaced the stockade by a fort, which, 

 in honour of the governor of Canada, they called 

 Duquesne. It was near the present outskirts of 

 the city that Braddock (q.v.) was surprised in 

 1755 ; and on October 15, 1758, General Grant and 

 his Highlanders had reached the hill on which the 

 court-house now stands when they were surrounded 

 by the Indians and nearly exterminated. The 

 following month, however, General Forbes took 

 possession of what remained of old Fort Duquesne, 

 the French having fled down the Ohio, leaving the 

 buildings in ruins. In 1759 the English commenced 

 a large and strong fortification, which, in honour 

 of the elder Pitt (see CHATHAM, EARL OF), then 

 prime-minister, they called Fort Pitt. The fort is 



