i66 WALDON FAWCETT 



a string and a pencil, and will place the pivotal pin on the dot 

 that represents Pittsburg, a radius of one hundred miles in 

 every direction will take in most of the territory where the 

 ironmonger is the supreme sovereign. Andrew Carnegie has 

 defined the steel making center as embraced within a line 

 drawn from Pittsburg to Wheeling, West Virginia; north- 

 westward to Lorain, Ohio, on the shores of Lake Erie; east- 

 ward to Cleveland, on the same body of water; and southeast- 

 ward to Pittsburg. 



The very vortex of this creative realm is found, however, 

 in Pittsburg and its immediate environs. In Allegheny 

 county, the division of the state in which Pittsburg is located, 

 there is produced nearly one quarter of all the pig iron turned 

 out in the United States, fully one half of the open hearth or 

 best grade of steel, and virtually two fifths of the nation's 

 aggregate output of steel of all kinds. 



A first faint conception of the tremendous, almost incon- 

 ceivable magnitude of this giant industrial exposition, where 

 above all other places a realization of the majesty of manual 

 labor burns itself into the brain, is gained from a glimpse of 

 the tremendous latent energy that is cast aside in the smoke 

 and steam that hang in a heavy black canopy close above the 

 roofs of the city. Perhaps it is because he understands better 

 than does the stranger the significance of the soot showering 

 clouds that the Pittsburger smiles indulgently upon the visitor 

 who complains because the sun is obscured or because he is 

 unable to enjoy immaculate linen for any length of time. 



The iron ore is ready, when it arrives at Pittsburg, to be 

 fed, if desired, directly into the furnaces. There is no neces- 

 sity for crushers to crumble the rich red mineral in order that 

 it may be readily assimilated. Iron buckets, each capable of 

 holding a ton or more, and traveling at high speed on the long, 

 slender bridges that form the highway for the ore when it is 

 first taken from the lake vessels, carry the raw material from 

 the railroad cars to the capacious wooden storage bins or to 

 the novel elevators which hoist it to the top of the great 

 tubular caldrons where it is to receive its first baptism of fire. 

 The blast furnace marks the dividing of the ways for the 

 various forms of iron and steel. Everything coming under 



