New-York and California Steamship and Empire City Lines. 587

in the California steam marine and the port of New-York, 67,336.

Added to this aggregate of the California steam fleet and tonnage employed in it, the aggregate number of ships and tonnage of the southern ports and West Indies, between these ports and NewYork, we have a sum total of companies, steamers and tonnage, as follows:

Companies. Steamers, Tonnage.
5.. .41.

ART. VII.-RESOURCES, ETC., OF PHILADELPHIA.

No. II.

MR. TYSON'S LETTER TO THE LATE MR. PETER.

from the open sea. London on the Thames, Paris on the Seine, and Liverpool on the Mersey, two of which are the largest cities of Europe, can boast of no great advantage over Philadelphia in proximity to the ocean.

requisitions of the port of New-York. The noble river itself is nearly a mile in width, from the Pennsylvania to the Jersey shore. A line of wharves, more than three miles long, now stretches along the eastern front of Philadelphia. The chain may be prolonged beyond Richmond on the north, to Greenwich Point, beyond the Navy Yard, on the south, making a distance of six miles, and capable of indefinite extension beyond these limits. On the bosom of this majestic highway, the largest vessel in the naval service may securely ride up to and beyond the city. At the Navy Yard on its bank were built some of the finest specimens of naval architecture of which our country can boast. The United States ship of the line, Pennsylvania, the pride and boast of the American navy, and beyond question one of the largest vessels in the world, found her unobstructed passage to the ocean

But the Delaware was once traversed by a rich and busy commerce. As the length of the river did not prevent its successful prosecution, so it can interpose no barrier to its return, since modern improvements, such as the facilities of steam and other artificial aids to navigation, overcome the distance in a few hours. In geographical space, she is as remote from the Atlantic as when she engrossed so large a portion of American commerce; but in point of time she has made no inconsiderable approaches, since distance is to be measured not by miles, but by the speed of the motion employed to overcome it. The mildness of the climate and an efficient icebreaker place her beyond the visitation from her dock at Philadelphia of a casualty, to which the Siberian winters of Boston render the harbor of that city peculiarly exposed. In brief, the tug and the ice-boat have removed every diversity of ingenious objection, and dissipated or neutralized every form of physical impediment.

These appliances of modern times do not lessen the security of her marine, while they place her on the same platform with the most favored port on the sea. Her ships while in port are effectually secured from ocean blasts, and enter on their voyages with the confidence of safety, and with all assurances of dispatch.

But the kind and watchful guardians of our city in New-York, ever solicitous that she should do herself no injury by rashness, raise their warning voices in a chorus of objections. They prudently hint, but in whispers, that the shoal and narrow channel of the Delaware presents insuperable obstacles to the easy admission into our port of the largest vessels; and that the want of room for wharves prevents us from accommodating a large mercantile marine. Such intimations, whether by wink or inuendo, or by direct and unequivocal assertion, whether made in ignorance of facts, or from motives of wanton disparagement, are wholly unfounded and gratuitous.

The accommodations for shipping at the port of Philadelphia are ample, and certainly more than equal to the present

The

channel of the Delaware is abundantly wide and deep for the requisitions of commerce in peace and the exigencies of navigation in time of war. It appears, from the official chart of the coast survey, that the channel is seldom less than a quarter of a mile in breadth, and varies in depth, at the most depressed stage of low water, from four to nine and a half fathoms, except at the bar below Fort Mifflin. At this point, which is but a few rods in extent, the deepness is eighteen feet at low water; but as the tide rises to seven feet eight inches above the plane to which the soundings are reduced, a profundity even there is attained which is equal to any emergency and the wants of the largest craft. In the face of these facts, officially ascertained and recorded, and of the commercial history of the Delaware, one of the newspapers of New-York is in the habit of informing and repeating, with emphasis, to its willing or credulous readers, that the stream of our magnificent Delaware will not admit the passage of merchant ships of the first class and highest tonnage! I shall hereafter give you some account of our mercantile marine, and of the vessels which habitually sail from the port.

It thus appears that Philadelphia has convenient accommodations for a large marine, has a safe harbor, and an expan sive outlet to the ocean. Nothing but the absence of will on the part of her

Navigation of the Delaware-Coal Trade-Iron Manufacture. 589

merchants to appropriate these blessings in 1820, with 365 tons, will amount in -nothing but a sluggish and censurable indifference to the rarest natural advantages-nothing but the unmanly spirit which would tamely submit itself to a degrading and suicidal dependence on the shipping of New-York-can prevent the return, as their opposites effected the acquisition, of a remote as well as proximate, of a great as well as productive commerce. Shakespeare, with a stroke of his pen, thus indelibly engraves the decree of fate, or the deliberate award of mankind, as the result of inactivity:

"An active dwarf we do allowance give Before a sleeping giant."

But Philadelphia has not only a noble river, but the materials necessary to make it the avenue of a mighty com

merce.

the present year to more than 4,500,000. Since the year 1845, the vessels employed in these shipments, at Richmond, have exceeded in number and capacity the whole foreign tonnage of New-York. Your town of Newcastle, in England, is said to enjoy from the coal business alone, a commerce second only to London itself. We may reasonably anticipate, from the increasing exports of that article from year to year, and the value of the return freights, that the suburb of Richmond, now three-quarters of a mile from the northern extremity of Philadelphia, will soon mingle with and form part of the metropolis itself. So long ago as 1837, the insurable interest in the coal trade, passing round Cape May, was estimated by Major Bache, upon competent data, to exceed $22,000,000 In order the more distinctly to show per annum. At that time the anthraher capacity to regain what she has lost, cite coal trade, concentrated on the Delwith additions proportioned to her aug- aware, had not arrived at a third of its mented numbers and larger capital, the present magnitude. Nor do I include in eye must be fixed on her history and the estimate of four and a half millions progress, while glancing at the elements of tons for the anthracite trade of the of trade within and around her. The current year, the western and northern genius of Philadelphia commerce should shipments of bituminous coals, which, be endowed with those faculties of past it is believed, will exceed the half of and future which are ascribed to the that quantity. If the supply from the double-faced Janus of antiquity; one to appropriate the rich and instructive lessons which a century and a half has revealed, that the other may secure that brilliant destiny which the illuminated record unfolds. Let us see how a survey of surrounding circumstances and the register of past experience will justify a favorable prediction in regard to her future career.

Pennsylvania possesses in her site one element of intrinsic superior ty over all her sisters. She is the only state in the Union which has a navigable outlet to the Atlantic, a footing on the lakes, and a command of the western waters. Her controlling sceptre is admitted over the long line of the Ohio, by standing at its head, at Pittsburgh. But before I trace the advantages of this position in furnishing so many inlets to the vast reservoir of her external trade, so many tributaries to the expansive sea of her foreign commerce, permit me to take a rapid view of what her own territory supplies.

The resources of the state are surpassingly rich. The anthracite coal trade, which commenced by actual exportation

mines of Pennsylvania has risen in thirty years from 365 tons to nearly five millions annually, it is easy to calculate the ratio of future increase, and how soon, with the bituminons trade, it will equal that of the British dominions.

The iron manufacture of Pennsylvania, exposed as it is to perverse, and visited as it has been by adverse legislation, greatly transcends in amount of production that of all the other states of the Union. We exceed the product of manufacture in Russia and Sweden united, and go beyond that of all Germany. We produce more iron than France, and equal in magnitude the production of England, as her manufactures stood in the year 1820. It would be difficult to compute the value of this business to Pennsylvania if the manufacturer of iron had not to contend with the low rates of wages paid to the English laborer, while he is obliged to pay those which are prevalent in this country. An excellent mineral, and the means of working it, abound in surpassing quantities; but owing to the large capital required for the maintenance of the business, and the risks attending its pursuit,

the making of iron is languishing, and its results are uncertain and precarious. The works established are not driven to half their capacity, with incredible loss to the state and deep injury to its citi

zens.

Pennsylvania there are 788 of these establishments in all, of which 208 are employed in the cotton, and 580 in the woolen manufacture. The pecuniary value of these establishments is not at present ascertainable.

What has made England the richest No one needs be told of the agricul country in Europe, but the possession of tural capacities of Pennsylvania, of the coal and iron, and the protection they fertility of the soil, and the excellence received, in the early period of their of her farmers. According to the same history, from the ruinous effects of for- census, she is the largest wheat-proeign competition? The relation which ducing state of the Union, her product England bears to the rest of Europe, being now greater than that of agriculfrom the wealth which these minerals tural Ohio, and far exceeding in quantity amass, will be sustained by Pennsylva- that of her neighbor, the State of Newnia towards her sisters of the confedera- York. The returns give to Pennsylvania cy. Your writers go far towards assign- 15,482,191 bushels, or 2,400,000 bushels ing, as the only reason for England be- more than New-York, whose arable docoming the great capitalist of Europe, main is confessedly greater. Several her possession of coal and iron. Profess- of the states are before Pennsylvania in or Buckland informs us that the facili- the article of maize, or Indian corn, but ties imparted by coal to manufacture, she carries the palm in the general proenable less than one million of her pop- ductions of agriculture. These fruits of ulation to perform the labor, in the pro- her fields are constantly on the increase, duction of artificial fabrics, of 400,000,000 and considering the broad belt of sterile of persons. Richard Cobden discovers mountains which divide and environ her, in her iron and coal "the primary and the vast area of the mineral soil, the source of her wealth and power," and prevailing fertility of her extended declares that the want of them alone plains and valleys inspires the emotion "prevents other nations of Europe from of wonder as well as the sentiment of rivaling her in manufacturing great gratitude. This is doubtless owing ness. McCulloch and other writers of chiefly to the bounty of nature, but authority confirm this view, and express something is due to the cultivation and the conviction that if the British coal should become exhausted, her boasted manufactures, now so dependent upon machinery, would soon become extinct. You may hence see, in the countless abundance of these minerals over Pennsylvania, one of the grand sources of her domestic wealth, and in the early and extensive developments of these elements of convenience and manufacture, and in the means of their conveyance to market, her best title to preeminence in commerce.

thrift, the industry and intelligence of the rural population. The practical farmer of Pennsylvania cannot find a happier or more plentiful home than that which his own acres supply. They in turn cultivate his virtues, while they bound the circle of his wants and ambition.

"Each wish contracting fits him for the soil."

It may now be well to compute by authentic arithmetic the aggregate amount of her various and multiplied resources. I rely for the accuracy of my figures upon estimates, prepared in the year 1844, from the official returns of the United States census of 1840, and compiled under the eyes of John Downs and Freeman Hunt, the well-known editor of

Pennsylvania contains within her borders a larger number of factories for the making of cotton and woolen goods, than any state of the Union; nor has any member of the confederacy a deeper stake in the due encouragement of these two species of domestic industry. The the Merchants' Magazine, a work genecensus of 1850 places her highest in rally received as correct in its statistical number on the list of these establish- details. According to these tables, the ments, even above the large manufac- total value of real estate in Pennsyl turing States of Massachusetts and vania is $1,400,000,000, and of personal New-York. The former has 213 cotton, property $700,000,000, making a capital and 119 woolen factories, and the latter of TWENTY-ONE HUNDRED MILLIONS OF 86 for cotton, and 149 for wool. In DOLLARS! No estimate of the real and

Capabilities for Foreign Commerce-Pennsylvania Rail-road. 591

personal property of New-York amount- been employed in making tunnels and

ed, at that period, to one-third of this aggregate. If we add to it the wealth which has since been accumulated, by constant development and unstinted expenditure, the sum will be so much increased as to depress New-York still lower, in comparison with Pennsylvania.

Such is the present wealth, and such the foundation of the future resources of this state. And, thanks to the prodigality of a former age, these riches are not wholly unproductive, nor "dead weights" upon the present times. Capital is still required adequately to unfold this magazine of nature, though much has already been expended. For the development of the mineral wealth of the state, I ascertain that the expenditure amounts to five times the sum appropriated by Congress to all physical improvements whatever in the United States, since the year 1804,-for roads, fortifications, harbors, and rivers!

Let us then see how the public spirit and enlightened activity of her metropolis, under the depressions of an exiled commerce, a transferred and buried capital, has made these multiplied benefits her own. This view will exhibit the capabilities of the city to sustain a large foreign commerce, and present such inducements as may exist, to the collection of the funds necessary to establish at her port a line of regular steamers.

adits to coal, and subterranean and superficial structures, for mining, and in the disinterment of iron ore, and works connected with its manufacture, would more than double the expenditure for railways and canals. No city in the Union has been so profuse as Philadelphia in the application of its capital, to develop the material wealth of the state in which she is situated; nor can any other state of the confederacy exhibit such extensive lines of artificial conveyance.

As Pennsylvania is in the van among her sisters in resources and improvements, so will be the destiny of her metropolis in magnitude and trade. SHE, and not New-York, is the GREAT DISTRIBUTER AND SELLER OF MERCHANDISE to a large portion of the western and southern country. Not content with various railway connections with many, the chief points of trade in her own state, she will soon hold in her iron embrace the cities of Columbus, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, by way of Pittsburgh, the great western emporium of Pennsylvania. To these granaries, the various avenues of western trade converge. At no distant day she will place her cars, by way of her own great entrepot, at Cleveland, in Ohio, and by direct communication, at the town of Erie, in her own state, on the Lake. These connections will secure a large portion of the trade of that grand highway of waters. At Wheeling, in The whole number of railways within the State of Virginia, she will particithe State of Pennsylvania, which exceed pate with Baltimore in the southern a mile in length, is 42, embracing to- trade. These points of junction give to gether an aggregate extent of 1132 Philadelphia the trade of that immense miles. Authentic data are before me, region west, north, and south, whose laboriously compiled by Col. Childs, luxuriant opulence would build into which show that the cost of constructing greatness and sustain the prosperity of much the greater portion of these 1132 many cities. Locally situated between miles of railway, amounts to the sum of New-York and the fertile districts be$48,236,431. If to this sum be added yond, their trade is naturally hers, and the cost of those which are not officially she now is stretching out her iron arms ascertained, and of those prolonged to receive what nature so bountifully beyond our limits, but made with Penn- offers. sylvania capital, the estimate, upon New-York, having no geographical reasonable presumptions, would greatly connection with the West, is limited by increase the line of distance, and swell her natural boundary to the lake trade, the whole expenditure to above sixty and encounters, in her ambitious enmillions of dollars. The length of the canals made within the borders of Pennsylvania is above 1,000 miles, the construction of which may be estimated to have cost nearly thirty millions of dollars. The immense sums which have

deavors to seize our western commerce, the interposing barrier of the county of Erie, in Pennsylvania. If the existing legislation of the state is to be respected, and future legislatures prove faithful to their duty, the gate of the West will neve