176 WALDON FAWCETT 



surface, and they roll off with a suggestion of the movement 

 peculiar to quicksilver. 



The rail mill presents many pictures that appeal strongly 

 to lovers of the picturesque. Under ordinary circumstances 

 the great strands of iron, each half as long as a city block, 

 slide back and forth smoothly enough between the rolls that 

 are stretching them and pressing them into the required shape, 

 but a tiny obstacle may at any moment turn one of these 

 cables of fire off the beaten track and twist it into a hope- 

 less tangle or wind it like a squirming snake around some 

 unfortunate workman. When the roiling process has been 

 completed, the piece of iron slides along to the great buzz 

 saws, which cut it up into the thirty-foot rails known to the 

 railway traveler. Every time the whirring circular saw clips 

 off one of these lengths, sparks radiate in every direction, as 

 though the biggest pyrotechnical pin wheel ever devised had 

 been suddenly set in motion. When the rail has been cooled, 

 and holes have been drilled in it, it is ready to start for any 

 part of the world. The evolution of bars or beams or sheets 

 from the big steel slabs is gained by the same general method 

 of procedure. It is the size and shape of the grooves in the 

 rolls which determine the form to be ultimately assumed by 

 the steel in their clutches. 



The completeness of one of the large modern steel man- 

 ufactories is one of its finest qualifications. This is strikingly 

 exemplified at Homestead, where is located what is claimed 

 to be the largest single iron and steel making establishment in 

 the world. The buildings, which extend for a mile and a 

 half along the river front, cover acres upon acres of ground, 

 and winding through and around them is a private railway 

 system equipped with seventy locomotives. 



