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ALBANY.

Albany is the seat of government of New York, and in point of wealth, population, trade, and resources, is the second city in the State. It is situated on the west bank of the Hudson, one hundred and sixty miles above New York, near the head of tidewater. It was settled by the Dutch, in 1612, and, next to Jamestown in Virginia, is the oldest settlement in the United States.

Albany is a place of great trade, and, during the session of the Legislature, it is much crowded with strangers. The basin, where the canal joins the Hudson, is formed by an artificial pier, eighty feet in width, and four thousand and three hundred feet long. It is connected with the shore by drawbridges, and covered with stores; in which immense quantities of lumber and merchandise are deposited. The basin contains a surface of thirty-two acres. The neighborhood of Albany is pleasant, and many beautiful and thriving villages are within a short distance. This city has a library of eight thousand volumes, eleven newspapers, and a population of twenty-four thousand, two hundred and thirty-eight.

CHARLESTON.

Charleston, the commercial metropolis, and formerly the seat of government of South Carolina, is built upon a point of land at the junction of Ashley and Cooper rivers. Its harbor is capacious, but difficult of entrance. The city is regularly built, and though the site is low the approach to it by water is particularly fine. Many of the streets are very handsome, and most of the houses are furnished with

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ach story. In the outer parts of the city, the houses are surroundnd ornamented by trees and shrubbery. Groves of orange and m, present here a most inviting appearance to the traveller, who th in the early season. Population in 1830, 30,289

CINCINNATI.

Cincinnati, the largest city in Ohio, and indeed in all the western country, stands on the northern bank of the Ohio, near the south-western corner of the State. Its

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site is the eastern part of an alluvial tract, bounded on the north by a ridge of luts

This plain contains about four square miles, and consists of two differen levels, one about fifty feet higher than the other. The city rises gradually from the river, but does not make a very bold or striking appearance. It is built with perfect regularity, on the plan of Philadelphia. The principal streets are sixty-six feet in width. The central part is very compact, yet the whole outline of the city is but partially filled up, and the greater portion of the buildings are scattered irregularly about. Some of the public edifices are of stone or brick, and many of the stores and houses are of brick. Here are four markets, twenty-three churches, a branch of the United States Bank, a medical college, eighteen public schools, a hospital, a theatre, ten newspapers, (two of which are daily,) and many manufactories of iron, brass, copper, cotton, woolen, paper, &c. The city has a vast trade by the river and canal.

Cincinnati occupies the site of old Fort Washington; and the outlines of the city were marked in 1789. There were five hundred inhabitants here in 1795, and nine hundred and fifty in 1805. The first settlers were principally from New England and New Jersey. Since the peace of 1814, the city has augmented with wonderful rapidity; and in 1830, contained a population of twenty-six thousand, five hundred and fifteen.

PITTSBURG.

Pittsburg, in the west of Pennsylvania, is the next, in this State, in importance to Philadelphia. It stands upon a point of land at the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers, which here take the name of Ohio. It is built on a regular plan, upon the slope of an eminence, and a level plain at its foot. It is finely situated for

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City of Pittsburg.

trade, and enjoys a communication by steam-boats, with all the great towns on the Ohio and Mississippi; but it is most distinguished for its large and flourishing manufactures of glass, iron, woolen, and cotton. The surrounding country is exceedingly rich in bituminous coal, which is delivered at the houses for three cents the bushel. The constant use of this fuel causes a perpetual cloud of black smoke to hang over the place.

WASHINGTON.

Washington, the seat of government of the United States, stands in the centre of he District of Columbia, upon the north bank of the Potomac, between the river and

one of its tributaries, called the East Branch. The actual city occupies a spot about a mile and a half above the junction of the two streams, although the original plan embraces the whole extent below.

The buildings which it contains, are in three distinct parts, one portion being in the neighborhood of the navy yard, another in that of the Capitol, and another in the Pennsylvania Avenue, which extends from the Capitol to the President's house. The city presents the appearance of a group of villages, the spaces between the inhabited parts not being occupied or marked out.

The Capitol is a large and magnificent building, of white freestone, three hundred and fifty-two feet long, in the shape of a cross, with the Representatives Hall and the Senate Chamber in the two wings, and a spacious rotunda in the centre.

The President's house is an elegant structure of freestone, one hundred and seventy feet in front and two stories in height, ornamented with an Ionic portico. It stands about a mile west of the Capitol. It is surrounded with the offices of the heads of departments. At the patent office, is kept a collection of all the models of patent inventions in the country. The navy yard, on the east branch, exhibits a monument to the American officers who fell in the war with Tripoli.

There are few other buildings worthy of notice for their architecture. The office of the Department of State, is a large edifice of brick, with a portico in front and

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there are two or three others of the same size and construction. There are two public free schools in the city. Two bridges cross the eastern branch, and one, the main stream of the Potomac, at Washington.

CANALS.

ERIE AND HUDSON CANAL.

New York surpasses every State in the Union for canals. The great Erie and Hudson Canal, from Albany to Buffalo, was begun in 1817, and finished in 1825, at the cost of above nine millions of dollars. It is three hundred and sixty-three miles long, forty feet wide, and four feet deep.

In the whole length of the canal, are eighty-three locks and eighteen aqueducts The locks are built in the most durable manner, of stone laid in water lime, and are each ninety feet long and fifteen wide. Lake Erie is five hundred and sixtyfive feet above the Hudson at Albany, and the whole rise and fall of lockage on the canal is six hundred and eighty-eight feet. One of the aqueducts crosses the Genesee river, at Rochester, and is eight hundred and four feet in length. Another aqueduct crosses the Mohawk, at Little Falls, on three arches of fifty and seventy

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feet span; two others cross the same river, one seven hundred and forty-eight feet, and the other eleven hundred and eighty-eight feet in length. The sides of the canal are sometimes paved with stone, and sometimes covered with thick grass, to hinder the soil from washing away. A tow path four feet above the surface of the water, and ten feet wide, runs the whole length of the canal. A number of side cuts branch off from the canal to different places; one of these, from Syracuse to Oswego, is thirtyeight miles long; another from Montezuma to Cayuga and Seneca Lake, twenty miles. The canal boats, for the conveyance of passengers, are generally eighty feet in length, and fourteen in width, drawing from one to two feet of water. The cabin occupies nearly the whole length of the deck, and is eight feet in height, with single berths on each side for thirty persons. They are drawn by three horses, and proceed day and night four miles an hour; relays are furnished every eight or ten miles. Boats with merchandise go about fifty-five miles in twenty-four hours; the passage boats make, including delays, eighty-five miles progress in the same time. The navigation upon this great canal is prodigious, and the work does honor to the sagacity and enterprise of those who planned it.

CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE CANAL.

The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal crosses the northern part of Delaware, uniting the two bays. It is fourteen miles long, sixty feet wide, and ten feet deep, with locks one hundred feet in length, and twenty-two feet wide. It begins at Delaware city, forty-six miles below Philadelphia, and passes westerly to Back Creek, a navigable branch of Elk river. The Deep Cut is the name given to the passage of this canal, for four miles, through a hill ninety feet in height, being the deepest cut upon any canal in the world. The Summit Bridge, which crosses the canal at the cnt, is a

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single arch, two hundred and fifty-five feet in length. Here the sides of the canal are secured by walls of stone, and the high banks are in some places thatched with

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straw to prevent their washing into the canal. East of this spot, the canal is carried through deep marshes; the foundation and embankments were executed at great expense. At every half mile are recesses for the passing of vessels, where the width of the canal is increased to one hundred and ten feet. At its junction with the Delaware, is an artificial harbor, or large basin, of a semicircular shape. This canal was begun in 1823, and completed in six years, at the cost of more than two million of dollars. The navigation upon it is great and increasing. In the tables, towards the close, we have given a list of the principal canals in the United States, with their distances.

COAL MINES.

COAL.

In no part of the world is anthracite coal found so abundantly as in Pennsyl vania. It abounds in the Wyoming and Lackawanna valley, between the Blue Ridge and the Susquehanna. The anthracite district is principally occupied by mountains running parallel to the Blue Ridge, often broad, with table summits, and rising generally about fifteen hundred feet above the ocean. These mountains are mostly in a state of nature, harboring wolves, bears, cougars, deer, and other wild animals.

The coal occurs in the greatest quantity in those parts of this region most accessible by water. Extensive veins and beds range from the Lehigh to the Susquehanna, crossing the headwaters of the Schuylkill and Swatara, about ten miles north-west of the Blue Ridge. It is abundant near the Susquehanna, and Lackawanna, but in no part is it so plentiful as at Mauch Chunk, a village on the Lehigh, a branch of the Susquehanna.

The anthracite region of the Susquehanna lies in the valley formed by the Susquehanna and the Lackawanna, one of its branches; this region is distinguished as

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