In early days, when there was no United States and our big America was a vast wilderness inhabited mostly by Indians, people who came here were thought very adventuresome and brave.

At that time there lived in England a distinguished admiral who was a great friend of the royal family. The king owed him about $64,000, and at his death this claim was inherited by his son, William Penn. Now William Penn was an ardent Quaker, and because of the persecution of the Quakers in England he decided to found a Quaker colony in another country. King Charles II, who seldom had money to pay his debts, was only too glad to settle Penn's claim by a grant of land in America. To this grant, consisting of 40,000 square miles lying west of the Delaware River, the king gave the name Pennsylvania, meaning “Penn's Woods.” The next year, 1682, William Penn and his Quaker followers entered the Delaware River in the ship Welcome.

Penn believed in honesty and fair play. He was generous enough not to limit his colony to one religion or nationality. All who were honest and industrious were welcome. The laws he made were extremely just, and land was sold to immigrants on very easy terms.

Soon after his arrival in America, Penn wisely made a treaty with the Indians whose wigwams and hunting grounds were on or near the banks of the Delaware River. Beneath the graceful branches of a great elm he and the Indian chief exchanged wampum belts, signifying peace and friendship. In the center of the belt which Penn received are two figures, one representing an Indian, the other a European, with hands joined in friendship. This belt is still preserved in Philadelphia by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

In 1683 Penn laid out in large squares, between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, the beginning of a great city. This city he called Philadelphia, a word which means “brotherly love.” At that time the so-called city had an area of 2 square miles and a population of only 400. To-day Philadelphia has an area of nearly 130 square miles and a population of more than a million and a half. It is America's third city in population, and it ranks third among the manufacturing cities of the United States. Philadelphia is on the Delaware River, a hundred miles from the ocean, but it has all the advantages of a seaport, for the river is deep enough to let great ocean steamers navigate to the city's docks. Philadelphia's easy access to the vast stores of iron, coal, and petroleum, for which Pennsylvania is famous, its location on two tidewater rivers,—the Delaware and the Schuylkill,—and its important railroads, all have helped to make it a great industrial and commercial center. One half of the anthracite coal in the United States is mined in Pennsylvania. Much of it is shipped to Philadelphia and from there by rail and water to many other states and countries.

Some of the greatest manufacturing plants in the United States, in fact in the world, are in Philadelphia. In certain branches of the textile, or woven-goods, industry Philadelphia is unsurpassed. In the making of woolen carpets she leads the world. This industry goes back to Revolutionary times, when the first yard of carpet woven in the United States came from a Philadelphia loom. In 1791 a local manufacturer made a carpet, adorned with patriotic emblems, for the United States Senate.

Other important industries of the city include the manufacturing of woolen and worsted goods, hosiery and knit goods, rugs, cotton goods, felt hats, silk goods, cordage, and twine and the dyeing and finishing of textiles. The largest lace mill in the world is in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia is also noted for the manufacture of iron and steel. The largest single manufactory in Philadelphia is the Baldwin Locomotive Works, which is the greatest of its kind. Pictures of the old Flying Machine, a stagecoach which made trips to New York in 1776, and of Old Ironsides, the first locomotive built by Matthias W. Baldwin in 1832, seem very queer in comparison with the powerful 300-ton locomotives built in Philadelphia to-day. Old Ironsides weighed a little over 4 tons and lacked power to pull a loaded train on wet and slippery rails; hence the following notice which appeared in the newspapers: “The locomotive engine built by Mr. M. W. Baldwin of this city will depart daily when the weather is fair with a train of passenger cars. On rainy days horses will be attached.”

Besides the American railroads using Baldwin locomotives, engines built in this plant are in use in many foreign lands. There is hardly a part of the world to which one can go where a Philadelphia-made locomotive is not to be seen.

Philadelphia holds an important place in the construction of high-grade machine tools. She has great rolling mills, foundries, and machine shops, and one of the most famous bridge-building establishments in the world. Her people smile at being called slow; in fourteen weeks a Philadelphia concern made from pig iron a steel bridge a quarter of a mile long, carried it halfway around the world, and set it up over a river in Africa.

Shipbuilding in Philadelphia began with the founding of the colony. It was the first American city to build ships and was also the home of the steamboat. The first boat to be propelled by steam was built by John Fitch in Philadelphia in 1786. This was more than twenty years before Robert Fulton had his first steamboat on the Hudson River. Robert Fulton, who was a Pennsylvanian by birth, also lived at one time in Philadelphia. Shipbuilding, to-day, is one of the city's great industries.

The art of printing has been practiced in Philadelphia since the very beginning of its history. William Bradford, one of the first colonists, published an almanac for the year 1687. This was the first work printed in Philadelphia. Benjamin Franklin entered the printing business in Philadelphia in 1723, and six years later published the Pennsylvania Gazette. This was the second newspaper printed in the colony, the first being the American Weekly Mercury, the first edition of which was printed in Philadelphia in 1719. Both of these papers were very small and would appear very odd alongside of the daily papers of to-day. The first complete edition of the Bible printed in the United States was published by Christopher Saur in Germantown, which is now a part of Philadelphia, in 1743. Philadelphia ranks first among the cities of the United States in the publication of scientific books and law books. One of the large publishing houses of the city now uses over a million dollars' worth of paper each year. It is interesting to know that when the Revolutionary War began there were forty paper mills in and near Philadelphia. At that time, and for many years after, it was the great literary center of the country.

When William Penn founded his Quaker town in the wilderness, he made little provision for parks, as at that time the town was so small and was so surrounded by forests that no parks were needed. But Philadelphia now possesses the largest park in the United States. This is known as Fairmount Park, which covers over three thousand acres of land. Splendid paths and driveways give access to every section of this park. On all sides one sees beautiful landscape gardening, fine old trees, and picturesque streams and bridges. Here is a great open amphitheater where concerts are given during the summer months; here are athletic fields, playgrounds, race courses, and splendid stretches of water for rowing; and here also for many years were located the immense waterworks which pumped the city's water supply from the Schuylkill River.

Among the famous buildings in the park are Memorial Hall and Horticultural Hall. They were erected at the time of the great Centennial Exhibition, which was held in Philadelphia in 1876 to celebrate the hundredth birthday of American independence. Memorial Hall is now used as an art gallery and city museum. Horticultural Hall contains a magnificent collection of plants and botanical specimens, brought from many different countries.

Another interesting building in Fairmount Park is the little brick house which was once the home of William Penn. It is said to have been the first brick house erected in Philadelphia. It stood on a lot south of Market Street, and between Front and Second streets. Some years ago it was moved from its original site to Fairmount Park, where thousands of people now visit it. Here too, before the Revolutionary War, was the home of Robert Morris, the great American financier, who, during that war, time and again raised money to pay the soldiers of the American army.

Many statues of American heroes ornament the driveways and walks of Fairmount Park. At the Green Street entrance stands one of the finest equestrian statues of Washington in the country. The carved base, which is made of granite and decorated with bronze figures, is approached by thirteen steps, to represent the original thirteen states.

The streets of Philadelphia, while not broad, are well paved, and many of them are bordered by fine old trees. It was William Penn who named many of the streets after trees. The names of several of the streets in the oldest part of the town are recalled in the old refrain:

Philadelphia is a city of homes. Besides its splendid residential suburbs, it has miles of streets lined with neat attractive houses where live the city's busy workmen.

Perhaps the city hall is the most striking of the notable buildings. It is a massive structure of marble and granite and stands at the intersection of Broad and Market streets. This immense building covers four and a half acres and is built in the form of a hollow square around an open court. The most attractive feature of the building is the great tower surmounted by an immense statue of William Penn. This lofty tower is nearly 548 feet high and is 90 feet square at its base. It is 67 feet higher than the great Pyramid of Egypt and nearly twice as high as the dome of the Capitol at Washington. The Washington Monument exceeds it in height by but a few feet. The great statue of Penn is as tall as an ordinary three-story house and weighs over 26 tons. It is cast of bronze and was made of 47 pieces so skillfully put together that the closest inspection can scarcely discover the seams. Around the head is a circle of electric lights throwing their brilliant illumination a distance of 30 miles. To one gazing upwards, the light seems a halo of glory about the head of the beloved founder of the city.

Philadelphia has many fine schools, both public and private. The two most noted educational institutions are the University of Pennsylvania and Girard College. The University of Pennsylvania was founded largely through the efforts of Benjamin Franklin. It now occupies more than fifty buildings west of the Schuylkill River and is widely known as a center of learning.

Girard College was the gift of Stephen Girard, who, from a humble cabin boy, became one of Philadelphia's richest benefactors. The college is a charitable institution devoted to the education of orphan boys, who are admitted to it between the ages of six and ten. Girard left almost his entire fortune of over $7,000,000 for the establishment of this great educational home for poor boys. Two millions of this sum were for the erection of the buildings alone.

Other prominent educational institutions are the Penn Charter School, chartered by William Penn; the Academy of Fine Arts; The Drexel Institute for the promotion of art, science, and industry; the School of Industrial Art; the School of Design for Women; and several medical colleges which are among the most noted in the country.

When the United States became an independent nation it was necessary to have a coinage system of its own. In 1792 a mint was established in Philadelphia to coin money for the United States government. All of our money is not now made in Philadelphia. The paper currency is made in Washington, and there are mints for the coinage of gold, silver, and copper in San Francisco, Denver, and New Orleans as well as in Philadelphia.

A visit to the Philadelphia mint is most interesting. Visitors are conducted through the many rooms of this great money factory and are shown the successive processes through which the gold, silver, nickel, and copper must pass before it becomes money.

We first see the metal in the form of bars or bricks. In another room we find men at work melting the gold and mixing with it copper and other metals to strengthen it. Coins of pure gold would wear away very rapidly, and so these other metals are added. The prepared metal is cast into long strips, about the width and thickness of the desired coins. In still another room these strips are fed into a machine which punches out round pieces of the size and weight required. These disks are then carefully weighed and inspected, after which they are taken to the coining room to receive the impression of figures and letters which indicates their value. One by one the blank disks are dropped between two steel dies. The upper die bears the picture and lettering which is to appear upon the face of the coin, and the lower, that which is to appear on the reverse side. As the disk lies between them the two dies come together, exerting an enormous pressure upon the cold metal. The pressure is then removed, and the bright disk drops from the machine, stamped with the impression which has changed this piece of metal into a coin of the United States. All coins are made in much the same way.

THE LIBERTY BELL