172 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



interests to other institutions will not correct any error which may be 

 supposed to have been made in allowing them to accumulate that 

 wealth in the first place. 



It is often proposed to correct and control the excessive accumula- 

 tion of wealth and the power or wealth by competition, but it must be 

 remembered that competition is a most potent source of waste. The 

 different iron ores are used together to produce a maximum amount of 

 iron from a minimum amount of iron ore, because they are all owned 

 by the same parties, regardless of the fact that some of the ores can be 

 produced much more cheaply than others. But if the ore belonged to 

 different parties and there were free and unrestricted competition the 

 most cheaply produced ore would crowd the others for a time entirely 

 from the market, and wou^d cause a decay of the town supported by 

 their development. I do not think that any one would consider this 

 desirable, and certainly from the point of view of the geologist there 

 would be a waste of resources. 



It is lucky for Michigan that the iron ore of Lake Superior is held 

 by a comparatively few strong corporations, the U. S. Steel Corporation 

 having, say, a billion tons on the Mesabi range and many million tons 

 on the older range. The Mesabi ore is a mere mass of varicolored dirt. 

 I saw five forties last summer said to contain 200,000,000 tons of ore. 

 All that has to be done is to run in trains of ore cars and load it on by 

 steam shovels, after once the layer of clay till, etc., overhead is removed. 

 The huge, yawning, red chasms thus left when weathered in the smoke 

 of puffing locomotives and laboring steam shovels, present a volcanic 

 and truly infernal picture. In time some of them will be 400 feet and 

 over deep. The ore, too, is largely of the highest grade. What could 

 any ordinary iron mine do in competition with such, especially those 

 of Michigan, where the miners have all now disappeared underground ? 



Fortunately, however, it has been found that in the draft of the 

 blast furnace in which these ores are reduced to iron, a good part of 

 this light powdery ore is liable to be blown out if not held down by 

 something more substantial. Moreover, a certain amount of some flux 

 must be added to aid the flow of the iron, and the silica of some of our 

 Michigan harder ores, poorer in iron, is admirably adapted to that end. 

 And as the same interests own properties in both states they prefer, 

 rather than to let their Michigan properties go to rack and ruin, to use 

 a moderate amount of that ore and save wasting their Mesabi ore, even 

 if thereby it is not produced quite as cheaply at the moment. They fix 

 the price, and in the long run it will be doubtless better for the com- 

 munity and corporation. More iron will be made with less work, by 

 mining the high grade and low grade ores together, than there would 

 were the high grade ore first run and wasted and then the low grade 

 ore developed. The same thing is true regarding coal. In an era of 

 unrestricted competition only the choicest portions of the best seams 



