PENNSYLVANIA, one of the thirteen original United States of America, now the second in population, and called from its position and importance " the Keystone State," is in lat. 39' 43' to 42° 15 n., long. 74° 75' to 80° 37' west. It is bomided n. by lake Erie and New York; e. by New York and New Jersey, from which it is separated by the Delaware river; s. by Maryland and Virginia; and w.by Virginia and Ohio. The small state of Delaware borders for a few miles on its south-eastern angle. The form is very regular, the boundaries of three sides being lines of latitude and longitude. It is 310 m. long, 160 wide, containing an area of 43,000 sq.m., or 27,520,000 acres, divided into 66 counties. The state is divided near the middle by the Alleghenies into an eastern region, whose waters fall into the Delaware and Chesapeake bays, and a western, in which the principal rivers are the Allegheny, the Monongahela, and other important affluents of the Ohio. These, with the Delaware and Susquehanna, Lehigh, Schuylkill, and Juniata, are the principal rivers. The chief towns are Philadelphia, on its south-eastern border; Pittsburg, at the head of the Ohio; and Harrisburg, the capital, on the Susquehanna. The Blue Ridge, which enters the south-eastern portion of the state, rises to the height of 1500 ft.; the passes of the Alleghenies are 2,000 ft. high, and single peaks 3,000 feet. Lake Erie is 565 ft. above the ocean. The geological formations range from the Pots dam sandstone to the coal-measures. There is middle secondary red sandstone and drift in the n.c.; gneiss and red sandstone in the s.e. ; the center of the state is a rich and fer tile limestone vailey. Near Philadelphia are line quarries of white marble. The great anthracite and senn-anthracite deposits of coal are east of the AIleghanies; west are the great beds of bituminous coal, which largely supply the Mississippi valley. Salt is
found beneath the coal, and in the bituminous districts great deposits of petroleum. Adjacent to the coal-measures are rich beds of iron ore, also lead, copper, nickel, and zinc ores. The climate is mild, and the soil fertile, abundance. of wheat, Indian corn, oats, rye, buckwheat, potatoes. flax, hemp, tobacco, bay and pasturage. with apples, pears, peaches, grapes, etc. While one of the best agricultural states. Penn syNania has also a large industry engaged in mines and manufactures, coal, iron, woolen, and cotton. The state has (1874) 5,854 m. of railways, 7S1 of canals; 34 colleges, 13 theological seminaries, 5 schools of medicine, 5 normal schools, 16.641 public schools, having 19,327 teachers and 850,774 pupils; nearly 6,000 churches, 1400 public libraries, numerous periodicals, 2 state penitentiaries at Philadelphia and Allegheny (one tau the solitary system), 6 asylums for the insane, 2 institutions for deaf mutes, 2 for the blind, orphans' schools, etc. In 1627 a colony of Swedes and Finns settled on the river Dela ware. In 1681 the territory was granted by Charles II. to William Penn, who, by the industry of his co-religionists, the society of Friends, by cultivining peace with the Indians and encouraging emigration, founded a rich and flourishing state. It win. the scene of Braddock's defeat in the French war; and in the revolution of 1776. Philadel phia was the chief city and capital of the federation, near which were the fictions of Germantown, Brandywine, etc. The population. largely Scottish and German in its origin, was in 1800, 602,361; in 1820 it was 1,049,458; and in 1870 it had risen to 3,521,931.