influence over the industries of the country, were just coming into
use. The iron ores of the middle mountain counties found their way
to the forges at Pittsburgh. Already the bituminous coals of the
western counties were serving to generate steam-power for the mills
upon the upper waters of the Ohio, but, as yet, the iron
manufacturers of the state depended on the abundant forests for the
production of coke for smelting.

The problem of transportation pressed hard upon Pennsylvania from
the beginning. While Philadelphia was obliged to contest with
Baltimore the possession of the eastern half of the state, she saw
the productions of the western counties descending the Ohio and
Mississippi to New Orleans. Even the trade in manufactured goods
which she had formerly sent to the western rivers was now menaced
from two quarters: the development of steam navigation on the
Mississippi enabled New Orleans to compete for this trade; and the
construction of the Erie Canal, with the projected system of
tributary canals in Ohio, made it plain to Pennsylvania that New
York was about to wrest from her the markets of the west. It had
taken thirty days and cost five dollars a hundred pounds to
transport goods from Philadelphia to Columbus, Ohio; the same
articles could be brought in twenty days from New York, by the Erie
Canal, at a cost of two dollars and a half a hundred. [Footnote:
McMaster, United States, V., 136.] To Pennsylvania the control of
the western market, always an important interest, had led in 1800 to
the construction of a system of turnpikes to connect Philadelphia
with Pittsburgh over the mountains, which developed a great wagon
trade. But the days of this wagon trade were now numbered, for the
National Road, joining the Ohio and the Potomac and passing south of
Pittsburgh, diverted a large share of this overland trade to