Resources of Pennsylvania-1841, the population is 1,724,033 in 1790 it was but 431,373. We have 28,000,000 acres of land under better cultivation than any other state, and worth 300,000 houses, worth on an average, Barns, stores, furnaces, forges, factories, mills, 1000 miles of canals, and 700 miles railroads, $701,000,000 300,000,000 200,000,000 100,000,000 $1,300,000,000 The Schuylkill mines now produce 500,000 tons-the other mining districts about the same-say 1,000,000 tons a-year-nearly half of this is for exportation. Three thousand vessels a-year visit Schuylkill river to carry it away, and yet all this is in its infancy. The Schuylkill is capable of producing four times its present quantity. The Swatara can produce as much as the Schuylkillso can those of the Lehigh, the Shamokin and the Susquehanna. We have, besides our anthracite, more bituminous coal (according to our state geologist) than all Europe! While Europe contains 2000 square miles, Pennsylvania has 10,000 square miles. The western bituminous coal-field of Pennsylvania is estimated to contain three hundred thousand millions of tons-being ten thousand times more than all in Great Britain! In one year (1838) two millions of bituminous coal was mined and used westward of the Allegheny mountains. Much more will be. The quantity of iron produced in Pennsylvania is estimated at one-third of the product of the whole union. The amount of bar and pig iron produces $14,000,000. The real estate of Pennsylvania as shown above, is one thousand three hundred millions of dollars-if taxed but three per cent. would pay off the whole state debt of thirty-five millions in one year. The annual production of the state is ascertained to be one hundred and sixty millions five hundred thousand dollars-and if taxed but one per cent. would pay the interest annually of the state debt. Who is not proud of such a state! She has all the resources of a great nation within herself—for happiness in peace, for power in war. She is capable of maintaining thirty millions of people, and feeding and clothing them herself. We produce one-sixth of all the wheat in the union. Our grain produces thirty millions of dollars a-year. Our water power is equal to the labour of four hundred millions of men! [See North American, August 12th, 1841.] There are no people in the world who have so many advantages with so few burdens. - Colonial Statistics of New York and Philadelphia, &c., compared. In 1769, the imports of Pennsylvania were £400,000 sterJing, and of New York was but £189,000 sterling. All the New VOL. II.-3 B 35 England colonies was £561,000, and South Carolina £555,000. Virginia was the greatest of all, being then £581,000 sterling! They kept in the same relative proportion till the adoption of the Federal Constitution in 1789. In 1791, the imports change thus, viz.: New York leads off at $3,222,000. Virginia is $2,486,000, and South Carolina is $1,520,000. In 1821, the imports change thus, viz.: New York leads off at $23,000,000. Virginia is $1,000,000. South Carolina $3,000,000. In 1832, New York is $57,000,000. Virginia is $500,000. South Carolina is $1,250,000. REMARKABLE INCIDENTS AND THINGS. "A book wherein we read strange matters." THE present chapter is intended to embrace a variety of miscel lanea, of such peculiarity or variety in their occurrence as to afford some surprise, to wit: Wild Pigeons.-The late aged Thomas Bradford, Esq., told me of hearing his ancestors say they once saw a flock fly over the city which obscured the sun for two or three hours, and were killed by hundreds, by people using sticks on the tops of houses. Mr. Bradford himself used to see them brought to the Philadelphia market by cart-loads. The aged T. Matlack informed me he once saw a full wagon load knocked down. A Captain Davy, who was in Philadelphia at that time, (described above,) went afterwards to Ireland, and there describing what he had seen, and giving the data for their numbers by giving breadth and time of passing, &c., some of the calculators declared they could not find numerals whereby to estimate their aggregate! They therefore declared it was a whapping lie, and ever after they gave to Captain Davy the name of Captain Pigeon. Thomas Makin's poetic description of Pennsylvania in 1729, in Latin verse, says, "Here, in the fall, large flocks of pigeons fly, In 1782, Hector St. John, of Carlisle, describing the country scenes he had before witnessed there, says, twice a year they ensnared numerous wild pigeons. They were so numerous in their flight as to obscure the sun. He has caught fourteen dozen at a time in nets, and has seen as many sold for a penny as a man could carry home. At every fariner's house they kept a tamed wild pigeon in a cage at the door, to be ready to be used at any time to allure the wild ones when they approached. In 1793, just before the time of the yellow fever, like flocks flew daily over Philadelphia, and were shot from numerous high houses. The markets were crammed with them. They generally had nothing in their craws besides a single acorn. The superstitious soon found out they presaged some evil; and sure enough sickness and death came! Fire Flies.-The first settlers and all subsequent European settlers have been much surprised with our night illuminations by our numerous phosphorescent summer flies. Makin thus spoke of them in his day "Here insects are which many much admire, Whose plumes in summer evenings shine like fire." Bees.-These, in the time of Kalm, who wrote of them in 1748, says they were numerous and must have been imported, because the Indians treated them as new comers, and called them, significantly, English flies. Hector St. John, at Carlisle, at and before 1782, speaks of the bees being numerous in the woods in that neighbourhood, and gives some humorous stories of their manner of finding the place of the cells, and the means of procuring the honey from No worms were ever known among beehives before hollow trees. the year 1800. Rarities sent to Penn.-Among the presents sent to William Penn, by his request of the year 1686, were these, to wit: he saying, "Pray send us some two or three smoked haunches of venison and pork. Get us also some smoked shad and beef. The old priest at Philadelphia had rare shad. Send also some peas and beans of the country. People concerned ask much to see something of the place. Send also shrubs and sassafras," &c. In another letter he asks for tame foxes and Indian ornaments. In another he calls for furs, for coverlets and petticoats, and also some cranberries. Flies and Martins.—I have often heard it remarked by aged people, that the flies in Philadelphia were much more numerous and troublesome in houses in their early days than since, especially in Market street. The difference now is imputed to the much greater cleanliness of our streets, and the speedier removal of offals, &c. It is said too, that the flies and flees were excessive in the summer in which the British occupied Philadelphia, caused then by the ap pendages of the army. Mr. Thomas Bradford, who had been for seventy years a curious. observer of the martens, has noticed their great diminution in the city, which he imputes to the decrease of flies, their proper food. In former years they came annually in vast numbers, and so clamorously as in many cases to drive out the pigeons from their proper resorts. Now he sees boxes which are never occupied. A late author in Europe has said martens decrease there as flies and mosquitoes diminish. Hector St. John, in 1782, speaks of his means of ridding his house of flies, in a manner sufficiently alarming to others. He brings a hornet's nest, filled with hornets, from the woods, and suspends it in lieu of an ornamental chandelier or glass globe, from the centre of his parlour ceiling! Here, being unmolested, they do no harm to any of the family, but pleased with their warm and dry abode, they catch and subsist on numerous troublesome flies. These they constantly catch on the persons, and even the faces of his children! Locusts.-1749, June 1st-Great quantities then noticed-again in 1766, in 1783 and in 1800-in this last year they appeared first on the 25th May. Sturgeon was remarkably abundant in the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, and was formerly much more valued as diet among us, and especially by foreigners. The old newspapers often advertised it for sale by the city agent of one Richards, who pickled them in a rare manner at Trenton. We know from history that Sir Samuel Argal, the deputy governor of Virginia, first visited that colony in 1609, to trade and fish for sturgeon to be conveyed to Europe. Formerly there were but few families in the country but what put up one or two sturgeons every year at the shad time. In Penn's time they could be counted by dozens at a time, leaping into the air and endangering the boats! Noxious Insects.-Several of these have appeared among us as new comers such as destroyed perpetually the leaves of our fine elms once in the State-house yard, made their passage to this country about the year 1791, and began their wasteful career on like trees near the corner of Pine and Front streets. They were supposed to have gotten their passage in some foreign vessel making her discharge of cargo in that neighbourhood. They since destroyed like trees at Chew's place in Germantown. "There filthily bewray and sore disgrace The boughs on which are bred th' unseemly race." Kalm, in 1748, speaks then of the peas being so destroyed by the bug that they then abandoned the cultivation of them, although they had before had them without such molestation in great abundance. They had to send to Albany for their annual seed, who would still use them, because the insect which also overspread New York neighbourhood, had hitherto exempted those at Albany. It is curious, that while the worms to the peach trees, now so annoying and destructive to our trees, were formerly unknown here, they were in Kalm's time making general ravages on the peaches at Albany. Now Albany is again, I believe, in possession of good fruit. In the summer of 1750, a certain kind of worms, (so say the Gazettes) cut off almost all the leaves of the trees in Pennsylvania avoiding only the laurel bush, the leaves of which are poisonous to some animals. Mr. Kalın made frequent mention of the excessive annoyance of the wood lice every where abounding in the woods. They were constantly brushed upon the clothes, and if you set down upon a stump or fallen tree, or upon the ground, you were speedily covered by a host of them, insinuating themselves under as well as above your clothes. He speaks of locusts coming, as now, in every seventeen years. Caterpillars too came occasionally in such numbers as to destroy entire forests. Some such places he saw, where trees were growing up amidst the bare stalks of the old dead ones, destroyed by the worms. Noxious weeds.-It occurs to me to mention some facts respecting some very prevalent weeds which have been introduced among us, to our prejudice, from foreign countries. The "Ranstead weed," or Anterrinum lineria, now excessively numerous in some fields around Philadelphia. It came first from Wales, being sent as a garden flower for Mr. Ranstead of Philadelphia, an upholsterer, and a Welshman, The yellow and white daisy, or Chrisanthemum lucanthemum, also the day-wakers and night-sleepers, or star-hyacinth, botanically called Ornythegelum umbellatum. These also originally came out as garden flowers, where they multiplied, and their seed afterwards getting abroad in manure, produced a general diffusion of those pernicious plants. On one occasion, they came out in some straw packing to old Mr. Wistar, and from inoculating his farm, proceeded to others. The late introduction of the Merino wool, has brought the seed of another weed, which is multiplying rapidly among us. Earthquakes.-In October, 1727, shocks of an earthquake were felt at night, at Philadelphia, and at New York and Boston, which set the clocks to running down, and shook off china from the shelves. The 7th December, 1737, at night, a smart shock was felt at Philadelphia, and at Conestogoe, New Castle, &c. When John Penn first arrived, on a Sunday, a strong earthquake was felt as he stepped ashore at High-street wharf. It raised some superstition, and it was, therefore, long remembered; and besides that, when he went home, a dreadful thunder-storm arose; and, finally, when he next time returned here as proprietary, a fierce hurricane came!-March 22, 1758, a smart shock was felt between 10 and 11 P. M. April 25, 1772, a slight shock felt, about 8 A. M. November 30, 1783, an earthquake felt in the city; and again, on the 1st December, a strong one was felt. January 8, 1817, the river was much agitated by the earthquake to the southward, tossing about the vessels, and raising the water one foot. Aged Animals. In 1823, month of June, there died on the plantation of Joseph Walmsley, of Byberry, a horse which was thirty |