Pittsburg

Pittsburg, a town of Pennsylvania in the central part of the West Pennsylvania coal-field, between the Monongahela and Alleghany rivers, occupies the site of Fort Du Quesne, taken by Washington from the French in 1758, the town which arose being named after William Pitt. Its position near the merging of the two rivers above-mentioned into the Ohio, and the fact of its being a great railway centre, give it great facilities for trade. The surrounding scenery is fine, and the use of a supply of natural gas for industrial purposes renders it almost free from smoke. There are fifteen bridges - some of them being suspension-bridges - and many good buildings. The coal seams in the neighbourhood are worked by means of adits, and the town is the chief centre in America of iron, steel, and glass manufacture. There are many blast-furnaces, rolling-mills, and foundries. The town owed its first success to the introduction of steam in 1811, and the development of the coal and iron industries rapidly raised it to a high position.