Pittsburgh was, even then, a busy manufacturing town, filled with working machinery, steam engines, hammers, furnaces, and coal smoke. I visited Mr. O'Hara, and several other leading manufacturers. They made glass, bar iron, nails, coarse pottery, castings, and many other articles, which filled its shops and warehouses, and gave it a city-like appearance. Every chimney and pipe, perpendicular or lateral, puffed out sooty coal smoke, and it required some dexterity to keep a clean collar half a day. I met ladies who bore this _impress_ of the city, on their morning toilet. I took lodgings at Mrs. McCullough's, a respectable hotel on Wood street, and visited the various manufactories, for which the place was then, and is now celebrated. In these visits, I collected accurate data of the cost of raw material, the place where obtained, the expense of manufacture, and the price of the finished fabric. I had thus a body of facts, which enabled me, at least to converse understandingly on these topics, to give my friends in the east, suitable data, and to compare the advantages of manufacturing here with those possessed by the eastern and middle states. Every thing was, in the business prospects of the west, however, at a comparatively low ebb. The prostrating effects of the war, and of the _peace_, were alike felt. We had conquered England, in a second contest, but were well exhausted with the effort. The country had not recovered from the sacrifices and losses of a series of military operations, which fell most heavily on its western population. Its agricultural industry had been crippled. Its financial affairs were deranged. Its local banks were broken: its manufactories were absolutely ruined. There was little confidence in business, and never was credit, public and private, at a lower ebb. There was however, one thing, in which the west held out a shining prospect. It had abundance of the finest lands in the world, and in fact, it promised a happy home to the agricultural industry of half the world. It was literally the land of promise, to the rest of the union, if not to Europe.