The Esplanade is not safe for wandering toddlers, and is inaccessible during Schuylkill River flooding. At the cache location, please use stealth, and re-attach the cache exactly as you found it. There are security cameras, but the cache is legit and the FWW security people know there will be odd actors about.
The given coordinates are not the final location of the cache; they put you near the puzzle answers. Here are your numbered clues, with optional historic background below it.
1. In the "avenue" of historic Schuylkill River businesses, two companies share this creature: _________
2. On the ground, there are two Keys to native fishes. Find the Key closest to the fisherman or if no fisherman, the one with perches. The namesake of the first listed fish might run one of those two businesses. Fish name: ___________
3. Take the first syllable of answer #2 and the last letter of #1 to make a common name. __________
4. Upriver on the Esplanade, find a plaque on the ground that has the long formal version of that name. It is plural and has an unusual spelling.
5. Now you need the surveyor's numbers under that name. Just the whole numbers, not the fraction.
6. Be careful with this step! First, double the second number but not the first. Next, replace the last three digits of the original coords with those numbers, preceded by a zero or zeroes so you have three digits, with South and East assigned to North and West respectively. Finally, change the 57 to a 58.
7. Leave the Esplanade level and walk to the new coords.
8. You are close! Add 3 points to North and 5 points to West and that's your final stage.
9. Have a seat and reach stealthily to the left. This structure was probably made by the company named for answer #1.
10. Enjoy! Please replace container carefully so it is tucked away and well-attached.
Fairmount Dam, completed 1821 and at the time the longest in North America, is #32 out of the original 32 in the Schuylkill Navigation System. The 108-mile system of dams, slackwater pools, canals, and locks was built by hand to tame the river for transportation and power. Hundreds of mills and houses sprang up along the new canals, as coal transported from the mountains of Carbon and Schuylkill Counties literally fueled the Industrial Revolution in this region. Unfortunately, the pollution of the river soon followed, even though Fairmount Park protected this area.
In the 1940s, the river ran black with coal silt and other wastes, and there were no fish at all. The government Schuylkill River Desilting Project of 1947-51 dredged the river and removed most of the dams, so the river could clean itself again. Fairmount was not removed because its slackwater pool is essential for rowing and other recreation, and to store drinking water. Recently, the American shad has been reintroduced to the Schuylkill. Along with other anadromous fishes, shad swim upriver in the spring using fishways (a.k.a. fish passages or fish ladders) like the one at the west end of the dam. As of 2009, all four remaining navigation dams have fishways. Happily, the Schuylkill now has fifty species of fish, as well as other animals that feed on them, including the humans who come to its banks with fishing rods. These are all ecological indicators of watershed health.
As there are no dams between here and the Atlantic Ocean, the river is tidal below this dam. If you see rock islands and mud beaches, it is low tide. The Fairmount Water Works, now a National Historic Landmark with an interpretive center inside, opened in 1815 to pump clean Schuylkill water to reservoirs atop "Faire Mount", where the Philadelphia Museum of Art now stands. Fairmount Dam redirected water around and through the buildings to turn massive waterwheels and turbines, which powered the pumps. Across the river you can see remnants of rock walls that were part of Locks 71/72 at Fairmount Canal.
The Schuylkill is still the drinking water source, now filtered and treated, for half of Philadelphia, as well as for Norristown, Phoenixville, and Pottstown.
CONGRATS TO FORBEZ AND PEZGIRL22 FOR FIRST TO FIND