hest waters, surrounded with
hills. This place was selected as the site of a fort and trading depot
by the French, about eighty years since, and a small stockade erected,
and called Fort du Quesne, to defend the country against the occupancy
of it by the English, and to monopolize the Indian trade. It came into
the possession of the British upon the conquest of this country after
the disastrous defeat of Gen. Braddock; and under the administration of
the elder Pitt, a fort was built here under the superintendence of lord
Stanwix, that cost more than $260,000, and called Fort Pitt. In 1760, a
considerable town arose around the fort, surrounded with beautiful
gardens and orchards, but it decayed on the breaking out of the Indian
war, in 1763. The origin of the present town may be dated 1765. Its plan
was enlarged and re-surveyed in 1784, and then belonged to the Penn
family as a part of their hereditary manor. By them it was sold.

The Indian wars in the West retarded its growth for several years after,
but since, it has steadily increased, according to the following

TABLE.

1800, 1,565
1810, 4,768
1820, 7,248
1830, 12,542
1835, _estimated_, 30,000

The estimate of 1835, includes the suburbs. The town is compactly built,
and some streets are handsome; but the use of coal for culinary and
manufacturing purposes, gives the town a most dingy and gloomy aspect.
Its salubrity and admirable situation for commerce and manufactures
ensure its future prosperity and increase of population. The exhaustless
beds of coal in the bluffs of the Monongahela, and of iron ore, which is
found in great abundance in all the mountainous regions of Western
Pennsylvania, give it preeminence over other western cities for
manufacturing purposes. It really stands at the head of steamboat
navigation on the waters of the Ohio; for the Alleghany and Monongahela
rivers are navigable only at high stages of water, and by the recent
improvements in the channel of the Ohio, and the use of light draft
boats, the navigation to Pittsburg is uninterrupted except in winter.

The suburbs of Pittsburg are Birmingham, on the south bank of the
Monongahela, Alleghany town, on the opposite side of the Alleghany
river, and containing a population of about seven thousand,
Lawrenceville, Northern and Eastern Liberties.

MANUFACTURES.

Nail Factories and Rolling Mills. Weight in lbs. Val