The rivers are crossed by many bridges and are full of boats. Up and down for miles their banks are smoky and noisy with furnaces, and at night the iron mills light up the valley with wonderful torches of flame leaping into the black sky. If the great towns clustered within an hour’s ride were counted in, Pittsburg would now have a million people. Only a hundred years ago she was, like many other cities in the New World, a humble village between two rivers. As early as 1730 white men journeyed here to trade with the Indians, who could come from any part of the western country in their canoes. Washington stood here November 24, 1753, and in his description of the place wrote, “I think it extremely well situated for a fort, as it has absolute command of both rivers.” Men were to need forts for a long time in that country, and the one which was soon built on this site had a stirring history. In 1758 it was recaptured from the French and named for England’s prime minister, Pitt. Hence we have Pittsburgh, which is the old spelling, but it is now common to drop the _h_, and write it Pittsburg. The old blockhouse of brick, which is still standing, was built in 1764. Washington came back to the spot in 1770, and found here about twenty houses, used by men who were trading with the Indians. Arthur Lee, in 1784, thought that the place would “never be very considerable,” but he was not a good prophet. In 1816 it had become a city and has been steadily gaining in importance since that time. Not much more than fifty years later an historian of Pittsburg said that if Mr. Lee could then come back, he would find a city bigger than the six largest cities and towns in the Old Dominion. The secret of Pittsburg’s success is in its location. Many years ago it was called “the gate of the West,” and through it has gone much of the trade between the East and the lands beyond the mountains. Even from New York the pioneers came by land and water to the head of the Ohio, an undertaking by no means easy in those days. A prominent man in Pittsburg once contracted with the government to send provisions to Oswego, and as he wished to make the long journey as profitable as he could, he packed the provisions in strong barrels that would hold salt. When these were emptied they were filled for the return trip with Onondaga salt and carried by lake Ontario to the Niagara river below the falls. They were then taken around the falls and across the lake to Erie, up French creek, over the portage, and at length by boat to Pittsburg. It was a roundabout way, but the enterprising dealer sold salt in Pittsburg for half the price charged by the packers who brought it by rough mountain roads from the East.