The packing of meats and the preserving of other food products is an extensive business and employs a large amount of capital and labor. The products of the Heinz Company, which is known to he the largest establishment of its kind in the world, are widely distributed and may be purchased in Argentina, Australia and at the Cape, as well as in Paris, London and Tokio. The manufacture of salt is exten sively carried on, the salt water being drawn from artesian wells and the salt obtained by evaporation. The refining of oil and the manu facture of gasoline is a great business, and Pitts burgh was the original centre of the oil-refining industry, which has spread extensively else where. One of the very large and profitable undertakings of Pittsburgh is the manufacture of fire-brick for the lining of furnaces and also of building-brick. Fire-clay and the silicates which are employed in this industry are found near at hand in abundance and the Harbison and Walker Refractories Company is known among smelters all over America for the ex cellence of its product. The manufactures of machinery, especially electrical machinery of all kinds, has attained a great development. The group of industries, which perpetuate the name of George Westinghouse, Jr., the Westinghouse Air-Brake Works and the Westinghouse Elec trical Company are colossal enterprises, the reputation of which is international. Another notable industry is the manufacture of wire in all its forms and its insulation for electrical purposes. The American Wire Works and Pittsburgh Steel Company produce an enor mous output of wire and without them the battles in the trenches of Europe might have been different in their result from what the event proved. Barbed wire made in Pittsburgh was strung all along the front in northern France and Belgium during the World War. The development of oil and of gas early led men in Pittsburgh to undertake the manufac ture of pipes and tubing. These articles may be made by casting or by forging. Both methods are employed in the community. The National Tube Company, one of the integral factors of the United States Steel Corporation, is the largest single establishment in existence, en gaged in manufacturing welded pipes. A num ber of foundries cast pipes from 8 inches to 10 feet in diameter, to be used as water-pipes and mains. Plumbers' supplies bulk large in the output of Pittsburgh factories. There are over 2,500 manufacturing concerns in the Pittsburgh district with their headquarters and offices in the city, with a capital investment of nearly a billion of dollars, employing a quarter of a million of operatives and executive agents, with a total annual output exceeding twice the capi tal employed. Among the more colossal indus tries located here are those which are associated with the names of Andrew Carnegie and his partners, which constitute the backbone of the United States Steel Corporation, the Ameri can Iron Works, familiarly known as (Jones and Laughlins," the Westinghouse Electric Company, the Pressed Steel Car Works. the Crucible Steel Company of America, the Pitts burgh Steel Company, the McClintic and Mar shall Construction Company (which built the lock-gates on the Panama Canal), the Ameri can Bridge Company, the Pittsburgh and the Standard Plate Glass companies (the main works of the latter concern located at Butler, Pa., an hour's ride from Pittsburgh), the Na tional Glass Company, the American Window Glass Company, the Standard Underground Cable Company, the Harbison and Walker Re fractories Company, the National Tube Com pany, the Atlantic Refining Company. There are scores of other concerns which might be mentioned, each with a capital running into the millions, hut these are some of the largest at the present time.
United States Bureau of Mines.—The prin cipal experimental station of the United States Bureau of Mines is located in Pittsburgh in a group of buildings which have been erected in recent years. Here the work ox the Bureau is principally carried on, though the general offices are located in the city of Washington. At the National Safety Meet held in Pittsburgh in 1911, 18,000 coal miners were present. The Bureau has at Bruceton, about 12 miles from Pittsburgh, an experimental mine, where from time to time explosions are artificially produced and rescue apparatus is tested.
Banking Facilities.— For the prosecution of the vast business carried on in Pittsburgh a large capital is required. At the close of busi ness on 31 Dec. 1918, there were 21 national banks, 24 State banks and 31 trust companies, or a total of 76 banking corporations in the Clearing House Association of the city. The
accompanying brief table shows in epitome the situation as to these institutions: The Bank of Pittsburgh (N.A.) is the oldest banking institution on this continent west of the Allegheny Mountains, and in 1910 commemo rated its centennial. The business transactions of the city represented by the exchanges made in the clearing-house during the year 1918 amounted to the enormous total of $5,761,511, 498.93. Pittsburgh in the amount of her traffic represented by the exchange of the clearing house stands sixth in rank among the great cities of the country, being outclassed only by New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and Saint Louis, in the order given, though it fre quently happens that the exchanges in the Pitts burgh clearing-house in a given week or month exceed those of Saint Louis. The pay-rolls made out in the banking institutions of the city amounted during the year 1918 to the daily average of $2,750,000, which was due to the war activities of the time, but have receded in 1919. A fair average for the past five years would be $1,960,000 per diem ; that is to say the working population in the mills and factories receives a total annual wage of approximately $588,000,000. This does not include payments for clerical, administrative and professional services, but represents simply the return to skilled and unskilled laborers employed in manufacturing, and takes no account of purely commercial or other business.
Chamber of Commerce.— Occupying quar ters in a new and commodious building at the corner of Seventh avenue and Smithfield street, the Chamber of Commerce has a membership of 6,000 representing not only all the business firms of the city, but numbering in its ranks Many public-spirited professional men, who are interested in the general welfare of the corn munity. The chamber has a very complete or ganization, enabling it to deal with all manner of questions which may come before it, and to aid strangers and foreigners in securing such information as they may seek in reference to trade and manufactures in the city. It has taken a very active part in securing legislation deemed to be advantageous to the interests of the com munity and the nation, and many beneficial laws on the statute-books of city, state and nation, found their first advocates here, among which •may be mentioned the "Daylight Savings Bill .° Housing.— Pittsburgh is well-known for the beauty and elegance of its better residential quarters. The eastern extension of Fifth avenue as well as Penn and Highland avenues are lined by palatial homes and such homes are also to be found on Ridge and Irwin avenues on the North Side. Sewickley Heights is adorned with some of the most beautiful and costly resi dences in America, surrounded by extensive grounds, laid out with great taste. Not only are the homes of the wealthy beautiful, but those also of persons in less affluent circumstances. Pittsburghers, even those of humble means, avoid life in closely compacted quarters, and al most every home, even that of the common laborer, has in front or rear or at the side a small amount of space for shrubbery or garden. There is less squalor and filth per capita in Pittsburgh than in any other great manufac turing city in the world. Intelligent efforts have been consistently made for years by manufac turers and the municipal authorities to combat crowding into close and unsanitary quarters, and any difficulty which has been encountered by them has arisen from the disclination of the un intelligent laborers of foreign origin to adapt themselves to the usages of the country to which they have come. One of the most famous of the millionaires of Pittsburgh undertook a few years ago to build a large number of model homes for workingmen fitted out with • all modern conveniences, which were rented at low rates, and then discovered, to his disgust, that the porcelain bathtubs were being used as coal bins and receptacles for rubbish by the °op nressed° laborers from southern Russia and Hungary who were his tenants, while the coal bins, which had been provided, were used as sleeping quarters. Pittsburgh has few "slums,* and nothing which may be compared with the °East Side" of New York, the back streets of Buenos Aires or the White Chapel district in London, unless it be the hill district near the centre of the city familiarly known as "Haiti,° which has in recent years become thronged with negroes and poor Italians.