USA > Pennsylvania > A gazetteer of the state of Pennsylvania : a part first, contains a general description of the state, its situation and extent, general geological construction, canals, and rail-roads, bridges, revenue, expenditures, public debt, &c. &c. ; part second, embraces ample descriptions of its counties, towns, cities, villages, mountains, lakes, rivers, creeks, &c. alphabetically arranged > Part 4
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The following statement relative to the Pennsylvania salt works, is from a communication made for Hazard's Register in January, 1828, by a " Large Pro- prietor." Since that period, they have increased very considerably in number. There are upon the Kiskiminitas or Conemaugh river, 30 wells filled up with furnaces and pans, and now making salt. These wells produce on an average, 2,000 barrels each, a year, which at five bushels to the barrel, make 300,000 bush- els. The capital invested in these works is about 100,000 dollars, including lands. The salt costs about 90 cents per barrel, when packed, and with the interest on the capital employed, 100 cents. It sells at the works, at 2 dollars per barrel. The product of these works may be increased to 3,000 barrels each, with in- creased profit, inasmuch as the expenses would not increase with the rate of product.
These wells are on the line of the Pennsylvania Canal, and their products will pay about 1400 dollars toll, per annum.
There are, on the Allegheny river, 5 wells, making about 7000 barrels : on the Monongahela, are 3, making 5000 ; 3 or 4 on the Sewickly, a branch of the Yough- hogeny, making 4000, one on Beaver making 1000; and two on Chartier's Creek, producing 2000 barrels. The whole of the salt now produced in western Penn- sylvania, is about 80,000 barrels. Ten or twelve new wells now preparing upon the Kiskiminitas will increase the amount to 100,000 barrels annually.
The cost of boring and fitting up a well with furnaces and other apparatus, is from 2,500 to 3,000 dollars. The salt is made by rapid evaporation, and conse- quently, is in fine chrystals, similar to the Liverpool salt. Solar evaporation requiring a large expenditure for reservoirs, is not adopted. Coal, the only fuel used, is obtained at about 3-4 cents the bushel, the price of mining. It is run out and drawn to the furnaces by rail ways. The furnaces lean against the hills in which are two strata of this fuel 4 or 5 feet thick and inexhaustible.
The wells are from 400 to 500 feet, and sometimes 750 feet deep ; tubed with copper, having copper pumps worked by horse power, (some are now worked by steam,) the water rising to the atmospheric or suck pump distance. It is thrown into large troughs, that the earthy particles not held in solution may sub- side ; and is thence passed into a shallow pan of cast iron ; after boiling, it is drawn off into vats, where the oxide of iron, some earthy salts with some muriate of soda are precipitated. The clear brine is thence removed to another boiler, in which the salt, in fine chrystals is deposited, and removed to drain. No use is made of the sulphate of soda, of which there is much in the water.
The cost of making salt in bulk, without barrel, &c. is 12 1-2 cents per bushel, and to transport it to Philadelphia by the canals will cost 25 cts. It may, there- fore, be profitably sent to the Philadelphia market. The capacity of the country on the Kiskiminitas and Allegheny, to produce salt, is doubtless very great
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26
GEOLOGY.
The number of wells continues to increase, and a million or more of bushels may be transported, to the east and west, by means of the Pennsylvania canal. The consumption of this article west of the Allegheny has been estimated at two millions of bushels, beside 100,000 bushels of coarse Turks Island salt, used in salting meats : for which purpose, the fine salt of the country is not adapted. The increase of population in the west is 300,000 per annum ; and this will re- quire an increase of 230,000 bushels of salt. The capacity to meet the increased demand is unquestionable. The water is strongest at Kenhawa in Virginia and Kiskiminitas. At these places it requires but 60 gallons to make a bushel of salt, whilst at most other places 120 gallons is requisite. By a committee of the tariff convention held at New York, October 26, 1831, the capital then employ- ed in the salt works of Pennsylvania, was estimated at $400,500 and the annual product at 600,000 bushels.
In considering the adaptation of the soils of Pennsylvania for agriculture, the geological divisions furnish the most convenient form of classification. We have seen that the state consists principally of the transition and secondary for- mations, having a small quantity of primitive, east of the mountains; and from these causes, it contains the greater quantity of good lands in proportion to its surface of any of the Atlantic states. The primitive does not extend more than 25 miles north-west from the south-east border of the state. The soil is light and indifferent where the Gneiss, granite or serpentine prevails. The lime- stone may form a tolerable soil, as the country though broken is not hilly, and has nothing that can be called a mountain. On the rivers and smaller streams where the alluvial is formed, the soil is strong and rich, and large bodies of marsh along the Delaware, are remarkable, for their fertility, especially in grasses. The uplands manured with lime, or animal excrement, or treated with gypsum and clover, become highly productive, and the crops frequently equal the product of the richer soil of the west. Eighty bushels of corn and forty bushels of wheat, are sometimes obtained from the acre, but such crops are rare, and the cost of pro- duction makes a large portion of their value. Still the vicinity to markets, the excellent roads, the steady price and constant demand for dairy and garden pro- ducts, and for every species of small crops, make the business of the farmer in this district abundantly profitable, and the inhabitants content. Consequently the emigration from it to the " great west" is inconsiderable.
" The extensive transition formation which succeeds the primitive, occupies nearly seventy miles in breadth to the top of the dividing ridge, between the western and the eastern waters, which forms the summit of the Allegheny moun- tains. * In this place the transition is wider than in any other part of our range of mountains, and is only interrupted for about twenty or thirty miles between Norristown and Reading by being covered by the oldest red standstone formation, The soil through the whole of this tract when level, is tolerably good ; where formed by the alluvial of the rivers, it is generally rich and fertile : but the quartzy and silicious aggregates, which most frequently occupy the mountains, decompose into light sandy soil, though the valleys between the mountains are rich and productive." The vein, south-east of the old red sand stone called by Mr. Maclure transition, and by Mr. Darby, secondary, is narrow between the Dela- ware and Schuylkill rivers, but widens south-west from the latter, comprehend- ing the central parts of Chester, Lancaster, and York counties. Limestone and marble, of very superior quality, abound in this formation, and consequently, the soil is very productive ; of which the great valley of Chester county affords the most delightful and satisfactory testimony. In the primitive, south-east of this valley in Chester county, we are informed that small beds of limestone are found, which add much to the strength of the neighboring soils."
The valley between the Blue Ridge and the Kittatinny mountain, sometimes oalled the Kittatinny valley, and also known as the great limestone valley of Pennsylvania, is from 15 to 20 miles wide inflecting with the mountains.
* If the old red sand stone formation be included in the transition, the latter will ex- reed 90 miles in width.
27
GEOLOGY.
It is nearly equally divided between the limestone and slate formations, its whole length. The section within the state is about one hundred and sixty miles in length, and covers an area of near 3000 square miles. The south-east part is formed of transition limestone, the north-west of clay slate. On the Lehigh the limestone and slate touch at a place called the Slates, seven or eight miles above Allentown. Thence the line of separation extends south-west, through Berks county leaving Kutztown on the lime stone, crosses Schuylkill nearly midway between Reading and Hamburg and the Tulpehocken north-east of Womelsdorff, leaving the latter upon the limestone ; thence through Lebanon county, leaving the borough of Lebanon upon the limestone and reaching the Swatara near the mouth of the Quitapahilla. From the latter creek to Hun- melstown, in Dauphin county, the Swatara forms the boundary, generally. That village and its immediate vicinity is based on limestone, and immediately at the bridge over the Swatara, on the road to Harrisburg, the river leaves the state and pursues the residue of its course to the Susquehannah, over limestone. The di- vision line between limestone and slate, follows a south-west course from Hum- melstown to the mouth of Paxton Creek, in the borough of Harrisburg, which rests on the alluvial deposite, partly on the slate, and partly on the limestone .- South-west of this point on the Susquehannah, to the Maryland boundary, the demarcation between the limestone and slate curves with the contiguous moun- tains, leaving on the former rock in Cumberland county, Carlisle and Shippensburg, and in Franklin county, Chambersburg and Greencastle,-and it quits Pennsyl- vania nearly with the Conecocheague Creek.
This limestone section is comparatively level, with a very superior soil,-stud- ded with towns and villages, extremely well cultivated, and inhabited by a large population, enjoying in profusion the comforts of life-pursuing with little ex- ception the business of agriculture. As in almost all limestone countries, spring water reaches the surface of the carth at distant points, and in very unequal quantities, leaving intermediate spaces so deficient, as to be distressing to the in- habitants. . The slate region is more broken than the limestone, and its soil of inferior quality ; but this is in some measure compensated, by the great ease with which it may be cultivated, and when the lime manure on the slate soil shall be extended, it is probable that the product of the slate will equal that of the limestone districts. Water is more equally diffused over the former, than the latter. In respect to forest timber, no striking difference is observable.
The remainder of the transition formation north-west of the Kittatinny moun- tain, varies considerably in agricultural value, which seems to be determined pretty much by the quantity of limestone, which blends with the soil. East of the north branch of the Susquehannah river, throughout [the anthracite region, the whole country may be pronounced sterile, with the exception of the alluvial flats of the Delaware and Susquehannah rivers, and their greater tributaries. West of the Susquehannah river, and north of the Kittatinny mountain, the coun- try would seem to be universally based on limestone ; it fills most of the princi- pal valleys, and is believed to underlay the mountains. Wherever it disinte- grates into soil, that soil is fertile, but frequently subjected to the inconvenience we have already mentioned, the unequal distribution of water. The mountains, composed of slate and sand stone, are generally barren. There are valleys however, where the limestone does not appear, which are rendered very fertile by the alluvion from the mountains.
The vegetable productions of the transition are very various. Almost every forest tree indigenous to the climate may be found on the mountains, the slopes and valleys of the Susquehannah ; and it would be difficult to conceive a species of scenery of which it does not afford an example.
The river navigation of the primitive and transition formations, agreeable to their general character, is obstructed by many rapids and falls ; and is liable to the freshets of mountain torrents, breaking through narrow and rocky passages, with all the extremes and inconvenience of too much or too little water.
The secondary formation, extending from a line running on or near the Alle- glieny mountain, may be stated as generally fertile ; for though the soil may be sandy on the hills where the sand stone prevails, it is uniformly rich in the val- leys. It loses little of the vegetable mould by washing, owing to its general horizontal position ; and the accumulation of such vegetable manure is in pro-
28
GEOLOGY.
portion to the time the trees have been growing on the soil. That portion of the surface of this district between the Allegheny mountain and the Chesnut Ridge contains all of it that is mountainous ; but these mountains partake of the character of the formation in the position of the strata, and character of the soil. In approaching the Allegheny from the eastward, it presents a bold and precipi- tous front ; and from two to five miles will bring the traveller to the summit, whence the descent westward is scarcely perceptible. Much of it might be called table land, for even on the summit, tracts of level and frequently excellent land extend for miles, in which are many fine farms, the soil of which though some- what cold, repays the labor of cultivation. The Laurel Hill, next west of the Allegheny, is little below the latter in height. It is so steep, rugged, and precip- itous that it cannot be cultivated. Its scenery is wild, and aspect very forbidding. The Chesnut ridge is comparatively low, and its appearance less savage, and soil less forbidding. The whole of western Pennsylvania might be characterized as table land ; low water-mark at Pittsburg is one hundred and fifty-two feet above Lake Erie, 727 above the Hudson at Albany, and 756 feet above the Atlantic ocean at Cape May. The apices of the highest ranges of hills are about 1200 feet, above tide water level in the Chesapeake. The soil of the mountain valleys is well watered and excellent. Leaving the mountains, the country consists of ara- ble hills, or as it is commonly called, rolling ground. Near the water courses the hills are sometimes too steep for cultivation, although possessing a fine soil, and clothed with a luxuriant growth of timber. This description embraces the greater part of Westmoreland, the western part of Fayette, Washington, Allegheny, Beaver and Indiana. The three first named counties have the finest land; and Washington is placed first in rank. Mercer, Crawford, and Erie, have large bodies of level land of excellent quality ; better adapted to grass than grain. Butler, Armstrong, Venango and Warren, have soils so various, that it is difficult to give them a general character. Whilst large bodies might be pronounced almost worthless, and others deemed valuable only for their timber, there are extensive tracts which will not suffer in comparison with any land in Pennsyl- vania.
The general, nay almost universal fertility of Western Pennsylvania, must of course be ascribed to the constituents of its soil, which is a loam, having in various proportions, limestone, slate, coal, gypsum, salt, and vegetable and animal remains. The coal is often used as manure, and slaty clay, which alternates so often with the limestone, contains carbon, which augments its productive quali- ties when decomposed into soil.
The soil best adapted to small grain, is that producing abundance of white oak, plentifully mixed with hickory, chestnut, walnut, other species of oaks, ash &c., the white oak predominating-for indian corn, that in which hickory, walnut, cherry, or sugar maple, most abound. Beech, maple, black ash, &c., indicate good grass land ; and the various species of oak, except rock oak, are common to such soils. Pine lands are not favorable to any species of grain, but produce grass when favorably situated.
Almost every species of timber abounds on the Allegheny mountain, except white oak. Pine of the several kinds predominates. Poplar, beech, sugar ma- ple, chestnut and birch are next in abundance. Wild cherry abounds in some parts, as also, black, red, and rock oaks, walnut, ash and hickory. Pines, poplars, and chestnuts grow to huge size. In some places, where the soil is rich and hu- mid, it is covered with a vegetation so dense and luxuriant, as to seem almost impenetrable. Chestnut, and red and rock oak are most abundant on the Laurel Hill, and chestnut prevails on the Chestnut ridge, where also poplar, oak, and most trees usually on high grounds abound. Pine, except on the mountains, is rarely scen in western Pennsylvania. Hemlock skirts the borders of some of the streams. Cedar is rarely met with any where.
In the valleys, and along the water courses, hickory, ash, sugar maple, cherry, elm, &c. &c. abound ; the majestic sycamore skirts the borders of most of the large streams, and various oaks crown the hills, and black walnut, in many places, indicates a soil of extreme fertility.
In the neighborhood of Lake Erie, beech and sugar maple, fill the forest. The soil is good, but difficult to clear, owing to the long spreading roots of those trees.
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CLIMATE.
On the head waters of the Allegheny and some of its tributaries are immense for- ests of white pine, from which the country bordering the Ohio is supplied with boards and shingles of the finest quality, at very low prices.
The forest trees generally are of a large size, healthy and luxuriant in appear- ance, and frequently as thick as they can stand. Fruit trees are abundant, and the soil and climate promotive of their fruitfulness. Grapes in great va- riety grow spontaneously ; some of them of excellent quality, worthy of culti- vation, as several successful experiments evince.
Western Pennsylvania partakes of the advantages of river navigation, which belong to the great western secondary formation. The streams are navigable almost to their sources. From the ease with which they navigate the small creeks and streams, almost every farmer may have a landing place near his plan- tation, and receive at a small expense, the limestone, plaster, or coals, necessary to agriculture and the other arts. Even where a canal is necessary in this form- ation, the level situation, and nature of the rocks, makes the accomplishment ea- sier than in the other classes.
The state of Pennsylvania," says Mr. Maclure, an experienced and competent judge, "is perhaps the best cultivated, of all the states in the Union ; that is, more of the farmers have dropped the ancient practice of wearing out one field, and going to clear away the trees of another, without adopting any system of manuring by plaster, or rotation of crops, so as to keep the lands, once cleared, continually in heart. Most of the Pennsylvania farmers, like the farmers in Eu- rope, make their fields better and richer, in proportion to the time they have been in culture. It is therefore, partly to art and industry, and partly to nature, that we are indebted for the prosperous state of agriculture in this commonwealth."
CLIMATE .- In treating the climate of Pennsylvania, the state might, with pro- priety, be divided into three districts, under the denominations of Eastern, West- ern and Northern Pennsylvania. We shall abstract from the memoir of Dr. Benjamin Rush, principally relating to the eastern part of the state, a description of the climate of that section, adding some facts and reflections which our own observations have enabled us to make.
It is supposed that the climate of Pennsylvania has undergone, and is still un- dergoing, a material change-that thunder and lightning are less frequent-the cold of our winters, and the heat of our summers become less uniform-the springs much colder, and the autumns more temperate-and that generally the winters are less cold, and the summers less hot, than they were some sixty years since. It is possible, but we think doubtful, that the variability of the climate has increased ; but the average severity of heat and cold we believe has not been diminished. Alternations of cold and mild winters, and of hot and cool summers, of early and late commencements of frost, of drought, and superabundant rains have been continued, but irregularly from the earliest accounts of the province, to the last winter (1831-2) when rigorous cold weather commenced in Novem- ber, and the Delaware river was frozen fast on the 7th December. The ice was broken up by an immense freshet in all the streams, about the 20th to the 25tb January, and great injuries, estimated at several millions, was done to bridges, ca- nals, farms, and other species of property, upon the western waters. A review of the seasons, from 1681 to the present time, shows no less than 39 years, in which the navigation of the Delaware was obstructed by ice in the month of De- cember. In 1681, December 11, it was frozen over in one night. In 1740, on the 19th December, the navigation was stopped, and the river was closed until the 13th March. In 1790, the river closed on the 8th December, and in 1797, on the 1st of that month. The earliest notice we have scen of the weather on the shores of the Delaware, is in the Journal of De Vries, who left the Texel, on the 12th December, 1630, and arrived in the Delaware at the close of January, or commencement of February, the usual season of our coldest weather, when un- impeded by the season, which he reports as so mild, that his men could work in the open air in their shirt sleeves, he erected on Lewe's Creek, the fortification called " Fort Osslandt." In 1780, in the month of January, the mercury stood for several hours at 5° below 0 F., and during the month, except on one night, never rose in the City of Philadelphia, to the freezing point. In 1817, Feb. 7, the water froze in most of the hydrant plugs, and in some of the street mains. In 1827-8, the winter was uncommonly mild, the navigation of the Delaware was altogether
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CLIMATE.
unobstructed. The atmosphere was filled with dense fog, during the months of December, January, and February, and during that period, including days on which the sun was apparent for some hours, there were not more than 17 days of clear weather. We gathered flowers from the unprotected garden in Feb., and pasturage was good at that season. The winter of 1778-79 was also uncommon- ly mild ; but there was ice sufficient to obstruct the navigation-on the 22d March, the orchards were in full bloom-and the meadows as green as ordinarily in the month of June. But on the 23d, snow fell two feet deep, which destroyed nearly all the fruits of the year. From these instances of variation which may be easily multiplied, it is apparent, that the climate, ever since it has been known to Europeans, has been, perhaps as changeable as at present, and that seasons alike mild, and others alike severe, have been known to alternate from the earliest to the latest times .* By a table for the month of January, during 20 years, from 1807 to 1827, the mean temperature of the month varied from 42º to 27°, and the mean of the whole period is 39° of Farenheit.
With these remarks we may observe, that there are seldom more than 20 or 30 days in summer or winter, in which the mercury rises above 80º in the former, or falls below 30° in the latter season. Some old people have remarked, that the numbers of extremely cold and warm days in successive summers and winters, bear an exact proportion to each other ; and this appears to have been strictly true in some years.
The warmest part of the day in summer, is at 2 o'clock in ordinary, and 3 in the afternoon, in extremely warm weather. From these hours, the heat gradually diminishes till the ensuing morning. The coldest part of the four and twenty hours is at the break of day. There are seldom more than three or four nights in a summer, in which the heat of the air is nearly the same as in the preceding day. After the hottest days, the evenings are generally agreeable, and often delightful. The higher the mercury rises in the day time, the lower it falls the succeeding night. The mercury from 80° generally falls to 66°, while it descends when at 60°, only to 56°. This disproportion between the temperature of the day and night, in summer, is always greatest in the month of August The dews at this time are heavy, in proportion to the coolness of the evening. They are some- times so considerable as to wet the clothes; and there are instances in which the marsh meadows, and even creeks, which have been dry during the summer, have been supplied with their usual water, from no other sources than the dews which have fallen in this month, or in the first weeks of September. The violent heats of summer seldom continue more than two or three days without inter- mission. They are generally broken by showers of rain, sometimes accompa- nied by thunder and lightning, and succeeded by a north west wind, which pro- duces an agreeable and invigorating coolness in the air.
The warmest weather is generally in July ; but intensely hot days are often felt in May, June, August and September, and it has happened, that the mean heat of August, has been greater than that of July. The transitions from heat to cold, are often very sudden, and sometimes to very distant degrees. After a day in which the mercury has stood at 86° and even at 90°, it falls in the course of a single night to the 65th and even to the 60th degree ; insomuch that fires have been found necessary the ensuing morning especially if the change in the temperature of the air has been accompanied by rain and a south east wind. In a summer month the mercury has been known to fall 20° in an hour and a half. There are few summers in which fires are not agreeable during some part of them. Mr. Rit- tenhouse informed Dr. Rush, that he had never passed a summer during his resi- dence in the country, without discovering frost, in every month of the year except July.
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