DESCRIPTION OF PHILADELPHIA. 23 



reached just as the workmen were leaving it to dine, during 

 which time visitors are excluded. The sentinel on duty 

 enquired if we were foreigners, and on learning that we were? 

 conveyed information to his superior in command, but on his 

 return informed us we could not be admitted. While we 

 lamented being too late to see the Naval f Yard, the justness 

 of our exclusion was fully admitted. 



Philadelphia contains about 170,000 inhabitants, is the 

 second place in population and the fourth in shipping within 

 the United States, and forms the depot to a county yearly 

 increasing in population, wealth, and extent. It is situated 

 on the west bank of the Delaware river, which is navigated by 

 vessels of the largest size. Many of the streets are shaded 

 with trees, and all of them remarkably clean and well paved, 

 running parallel and at right angles to each other. The 

 houses are generally built of red brick, those of some of the 

 principal streets ; - having the basement, steps, door, and win 

 dow sides of white marble. The doors are in general painted 

 white, and llejfe silver handles and knockers. Houses of this 

 description hav% a chaste and pleasing appearance. Many of 

 the public buildings are elegant, and composed of white marble. 

 The city is generally considered regular, to a fault the inhabi 

 tants the most wealthy, fashionable, and polished in America. 

 The weather continuing wet, we left Philadelphia for New 

 York at three o clock in the afternoon, passing the night at 

 Perth Amboy, where we paid a charge of threepence sterling 

 for cleaning boots, and reached New York next morning. 

 The railway from Amboy to Bordentown passes chiefly through 

 Middlesex county, state of New Jersey. The soil is abso 

 lutely drift sand, and, according to my present notions of 

 farming, unworthy of cultivation. The crops consisted chiefly 

 of rye and Indian corn, and were uniformly bad. Clovers and 

 timothy grass are seldom sown. In several instances lime and 

 gypsum had been applied where Indian corn was growing, 

 having been carried to the field in waggons, and spread thinly 

 over the surface. In one instance farmyard manure was 

 being applied in imperfectly formed drills, which I supposed 

 were destined to receive potatoes. Women were seen hoeing 

 Indian corn in the fields, but I could not discover whether they 



