Passing by many farm homesteads, villages, and towns, all having a prosperous kind of appearance, and described as “one of the richest agricultural districts in America,” we ran into Harrisburg, which is the capital of Pennsylvania, and situate on the east bank of the Susquehanna River.  About five miles above Harrisburg we crossed the Susquehanna River on a bridge 3,670 feet long, from the centre of which I am told there is a fine view, but I lost it, as a snowstorm was raging while I was crossing.

We stopped at Altoona, a large city lying at the foot of the Alleghanies, and in ascending the Alleghanies fine scenery and great engineering feats are discernible.  From this we ran on to Pittsburg, which claims to be the best lighted city in America, the streets being brilliantly illuminated by arc and incandescent electric lights.  Nine bridges cross the Allegheny, and five the Monongahela rivers.  Pittsburg has been called the “iron city,” and “smoky city”; it has immense glass, steel and iron manufactures, and in these three interests alone employs over 50,000 persons.

Then we proceed till, presently, we catch sight of Lake Michigan, and know that Chicago is not far off.  We skirt the shore of this busy water, with its wharves, etc.  On arrival (December 2nd) we drive through the city from the Pennsylvania to the North-Western terminus.

Chicago is 912 miles from New York:  it is the greatest city in Illinois, and during the past 50 years has grown from a small Indian trading station into a metropolis.  Chicago extends some 20 miles along the shores of Lake Michigan, and goes back from the lake to a depth of about four miles, thus embracing about 80 square miles; beyond these confines of the city proper the suburbs extend to some 6 to 10 miles in every direction.  It will be remembered that in 1871 Chicago had a great fire, which burned an area of 3-1/8 square miles, destroyed 17,450 buildings, made 98,500 persons homeless, and killed outright about 200 more.  The loss of property was estimated at 190,000,000 dollars, of which only 30,000,000 dollars were recovered from insurances, and this bankrupted some of the insurance companies.  In 1874 another fire consumed 5,000,000 dollars’ worth of property.  Chicago is the great central depot for grain, lumber and live stock.  In 1888 there were packed at Chicago 4,500,000 hogs, and about 1,600,000 cattle.  Chicago has also extensive iron, steel, wheel, car, flour, furniture, boot and shoe and tannery manufactures.  In driving through I noticed one long street, to the right and left of the street I was traversing, thickly occupied with tradesmen’s carts, backed on the kerb in the usual fashion, being loaded from the stores (or shops):  there must have been a few hundred of them; I never saw so many in one street at one time anywhere in any part of the world.  Chicago was cased in frozen snow, and thus was not very attractive; but I noticed many very fine buildings, and was much struck with the cosmopolitan character of the inhabitants.  During the interval of waiting for the train on the North-Western to start I was able to see a little of the place, and found that some persons I spoke to could not speak English.  They came apparently from all parts of the continent of Europe.