Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 07.djvu/273

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PHILADELPHIA
217
PHILADELPHIA

Municipal Improvements.—The city owns a waterworks system which cost about $65,000,000. They have a daily capacity of 320,000,000 gallons, and the water is distributed through 1,800 miles of mains. There are in all 1,733 miles of streets, of which 1,549 are paved. The sewer system covers 1,386 miles. The city is lighted by electricity at a cost of $1,244,696 per annum. The average annual cost of the police department is almost $5,000,000, and that of the fire department $2,170,000. The annual death rate averages 24.19 per 1,000. The cost of maintaining the city government in 1919 was $35,514,399. Electric street car lines traverse the principal streets and extend to the various suburbs.

INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA

Fairmount Park.—This is one of the largest public parks in the world. It extends more than 7 miles on both banks of the Schuylkill river, and more than 6 miles on both banks of Wissahickon creek, giving it an area of over 3,000 acres, traversed by 32½ miles of driveways. The park contains four reservoirs of the Schuylkill waterworks; Randolph Rogers' colossal bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln; statues of Washington, Garfield, Grant and others; the mansion (now occupied by a restaurant) in which Robert Morris lived during the Revolutionary War; the Solitude, a villa erected by John Penn, grandson of William Penn, in 1785; the Zoölogical Gardens; Commercial Museum; Belmont Glen, a beautiful ravine; and other points of interest. In 1876 the Centennial Exposition was held here. Memorial Hall, erected at a cost of $1,500,000, which was used for the art gallery of the Exposition, now contains a permanent indus-