Penjyhania, Germantown. 93 



much more fcarcc. However they fell it 

 to joiners, coach -makers, and other artifts, 

 who pay exorbitantly for it. For a quan- 

 tity of biccory of eight foot in length, and 

 four in depth, and the pieces being like- 

 wife four foot long, they paid at prefent 

 eighteen (hillings of Penfyhanian currency. 

 But the fame quantity of oak only came to 

 twelve fhillings. The people who came 

 at prefent to fell v^^ood in the market were 

 peafants, who lived at a great diflance from 

 the town. Every body complained that 

 fuel in the fpace of a few years, was rifen 

 in price to many times as much again as it 

 had been, and to account for this, the fol- 

 lowing reafons were given : the town is 

 encreafed to fuch a degree, as to be four or 

 fix times bigger, and more populous than 

 what fome old people have known it to be, 

 when they were young. Many brick-kilns 

 have been made hereabouts, which require 

 a great quantity of wood. The country is 

 likewife more cultivated than it ufed to be, 

 and confequently great woods have been 

 cut down for that purpofe ; and the farms 

 built in thofe places likewife confume a 

 quantity of wood. Laftly, they melt iron 

 out of the ore, in feveral places about the 

 town, and this work always goes oa with- 

 out interruption. For thefe reafons it is 



concluded 



