A cloud of smoke from the soft coal burned in so many shops and furnaces hangs over the lower parts of Pittsburg and has given it the name of “The Smoky City.” James Parton says that on the first morning of his visit there he felt sure that he was rising very early, for the street lamps were all burning and he ate his breakfast in a room lighted by gas. As the room was filled with people, he thought Pittsburg was very enterprising, and himself along with it, but he was quite taken aback when he looked at his watch and found that it was almost nine o’clock. Darker even than the streets are the “rooms” in which thousands of miners, within a few miles of the city, dig out coal with their picks and shovels. If one rides into Pittsburg by night, he will see something finer than fireworks. The train is likely to whirl him past long rows of fiery ovens in which coal is being made into coke. And in many towns near by, as well as along the rivers by the city itself, the jets of flame will show iron furnaces and steel mills, with grimy workmen moving about in the strange light. [Illustration: FIG. 48. FURNACES NEAR PITTSBURG] The iron ore for these furnaces is brought from many parts of the country, but chiefly from the lands around lake Superior. It is shipped down the lakes in large steamers and loaded into cars at Cleveland or some other port on lake Erie. Instead of carrying the coal to the ore, the ore is thus brought to the coal, without which it could not be worked. The reason for this is that Pittsburg is much nearer the places where most of the iron is to be used. If the coal of Pennsylvania were taken to the iron mines of Minnesota and the furnaces built there, much of the iron and steel would have to be carried back a long way to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and other parts of the East. Glass mills form an important part of the city’s industries and have been in operation for a long time. Bottle glass is manufactured here, besides three fourths of all the plate glass of the United States. Perhaps it is because bottles are made in Pittsburg that we find here also the largest cork factory in the world. Pittsburg is proud of the fact that she handles more tons of freight in a year than any other city in the world. Indeed, the tonnage is greater than that of New York and Chicago taken together. The old “point” between the rivers is filled with tall buildings. Inclined railways run up the steep bluffs on the further side of each river and lead to the beautiful streets and the homes where many of the people live. For Pittsburg is not all coal and furnaces and smoke, but has fine churches, the great Carnegie Library and Museum, and many schools. But it is mostly because of the coal and the rivers that we find here a splendid city.