PENNSYLVANIA.

BY PHILIP FRENEAU.

SPREAD with stupendous hills, far from the main,
Fair Pennsylvania holds her golden reign;

In fertile fields her wheaten harvest grows,

Charged with its freights her favorite Delaware flows; From ERIE's lake her soil with plenty teems

To where the Schuylkill rolls his limpid streamsSweet stream! what pencil can thy beauties tell— Where, wandering downward through the woody vale, Thy varying scenes to rural bliss invite,

To health and pleasure add a new delight.

Here Juniata, too, allures the swain,

And gay Cadorus roves along the plain ;

Swatara, tumbling from the distant hill,

Steals through the waste, to turn the industrious mill— Where'er those floods through groves or mountain stray,

That God of nature still directs the way;

With fondest care has traced each river's bed,
And mighty streams thro' mighty forests led ;
Bade agriculture thus export her freight,
The strength and glory of this favored STATE.

She, famed for science, arts, and polished men, Admires her FRANKLIN, but adores her PENN,

Who wandering here, made barren forests bloom,
And the new soil a happier robe assume:
He planned no schemes that virtue disapproves,
He robbed no Indian of his native groves,

But, just to all, beheld his tribes increase,
Did what he could to bind the world in peace,
And, far retreating from a selfish band,

Bade Freedom flourish in this foreign land.

Gay towns unnumbered shine through all her plains, Here every art its happiest height attains:

The graceful ship, on nice proportions planned,
Here finds perfection from the builder's hand,
To distant worlds commercial visits pays,
Or war's bold thunder o'er the deep conveys.

PART I.

WE

Che Valley of the Schuylkill.

Let us, since life can little else supply,
Than just to look around us, and to die,
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man—
A mighty maze, but not without a plan;

A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot,
Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
Together let us roam this ample field-
Try what the open, what the covert yield;
Eye Nature's walks-shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners, living, as they rise;
Laugh where we must-be candid where we can,
But always vindicate the ways of God to man!

ROM Philadelphia to Pottsville, Tamaqua and Mauch Chunk, thence to Wilkesbarre, in Wyoming;—this is the journey before us. Having seated ourselves in the comfortable cars of the Reading Railroad Company, the first object which arrests our attention, after leaving the depot at Broad near Callow hill street, is the Preston Retreat, a fine marble building on our right; we then catch glimpses of the Eastern Penitentiary, which served as a model for European Institutions of a like character, and of Girard College, the finest building of the

kind in the United States, and one of the finest in the world. 2*

C

(17)

GIRARD COLLEGE.

Shortly after which we see, on our left, the Fairmount Water-works, and although a notice of it is not strictly within the range of this work, it may nevertheless prove interesting to many to learn something of its leading features, especially as it was the first establishment of the kind ever erected in the United States; and, in point of boldness of conception and romantic profile, probably inferior to none in any quarter of the globe.

The first water-works were commenced in 1799. A steam-engine was placed in Chestnut street, near the Schuylkill, by means of which the water was elevated to a basin in Penn square, and from thence distributed to the city in wooden pipes. The quantity of water thus obtained was soon found to be entirely too small to supply the increasing demand, and the works were abandoned in 1815, after nearly $700,000 had been spent upon them. In 1816 the works at Fairmount were commenced, the water being again raised by steam to an elevated reservoir. Steam was found too expensive, and arrangements were adopted in 1818, by which the water-power of the river was applied. A dam was erected in a diagonal course across the river, securing a head of water nearly thirty feet in depth, and conducted to the mill-houses, on the eastern side of the stream, as represented in the engraving on the opposite page. Here the water

is forced up to the reservoir, elevated about one hundred feet above the level of the river, and fifty feet above the highest ground in the city. The reservoir, when full, contains twelve feet of water, and is capable of holding over twenty-two millions of gallons. There are eighty-three miles of water-pipe laid down in the city, exclusive of the works of Spring Garden and the Northern Liberties, which probably have an equal extent in the adjoining districts of the city proper. The daily average consumption of water, from these works, is nearly five million gallons. Their total cost was $1,615,169, and they were designed and executed by the late Frederick Graff, to whose memory a handsome monument is erected in the grounds fronting on the Schuylkill, from a design by his son.

The comparison between the present works and the old steamworks, is greatly to the advantage of the former. It was not possible, with the steam-engines, to raise one million two hundred and fifty thousand gallons per day-whereas, the present works, with only three wheels, can readily raise three times this amount, without any increase of expense. But if the same quantity were required to be raised by additional steam engines, the annual expense would probably be at least $75,000. In other words, the expense of raising three hundred and seventy-five thousand gallons per day, by steam, would be $206-by water, it is only $4. In this estimate, the first cost of the steam-engines or of the water-power is not considered.

These works are eminently worth a visit from the stranger. They are delightfully situated, and present a view, in connection with surrounding objects, of rare beauty and spirit. The wire-bridge, stretch