TRANSPORTATION AND COMMERCE. Pennsyl vania is exceeded in railroad mileage by only one other State. There was an increase by 259S miles in 1800 to 8638 miles in ]S90 and 10.310 miles in 1000. For the fiscal year ending in 1900 the number of passengers carried was 216.603. 748 and the receipts per passenger per mile averaged 1.852 cents. During the same year there were 478,6S-1.683 tons of freight carried, for which the receipts per ton per mile averaged .6 of a cent. A large numbei of the smaller lines have fallen into the hands of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which operates 2912 miles in the State.
Other important roads are the Philadelphia and Reading: the Lehigh Valley; the Pittsburg, Cincinnati. and Saint Louis: the more and Ohio: the Erie; the Philadelphia, Wil mington and Baltimore; the Delaware. Lacka wanna and Western; the Western New York and Pennsylvania; and the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago. The canal and slack-water naviga
tion facilities are mostly controlled by railroad and coal-mining corporations. The State expend ed large sums in canal construction, but the rapid extension of the railroad system has caused many such waterways to be abandoned.
Philadelphia and Erie are the ports of entry, and control a considerable amount of foreign commerce. Philadelphia ranks third among the Atlantic Coast ports in the value of its foreign trade. Erie has one of the best harbors on Lake Erie, and carries on a large import trade in Michigan iron and Canadian lumber, and exports large quantities of coal. Pittsburg also, at the eastern head of navigation on the Western rivers, has an immense inland trade, while its local ship yards build large numbers of steamboats for use on the Western streams.