It
was about as far from Paris to Marseilles in 1750 as it is to-day from
Paris to Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh is the front door of the valley of La Salle, as we now know the
valley, and the most important door; for the tonnage that enters and
leaves it by rail and water (177,071,238 tons in 1912 for the Pittsburgh
district) exceeds the tonnage of the five other greatest cities of the
world [Footnote: R. B. Naylor, address before the Ohio Valley Historical
Association (quoted in Hulbert, "Ohio River," pp. 365-6).] and is twice
the combined tonnage of both coasts of the United States to and from
foreign ports--which is probably due to the fact that so much of its
traffic is not in silks and furs but in iron and coal. And the multitudes
of human beings that pass through it are comparable in number with the
migrant tonnage and inanimate cargoes; for Pittsburgh is "the antithesis
of a mediaeval town"; "it is all motion;" "it is a flow, not a tank." The
mountains, once impenetrable barriers that had to be gone about, have been
levelled, and in the levelling the watersheds, as we have seen, have been
shifted.
Pages:
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343