CHAPTER X 

 STEEL AND IRON 



205. The industrial and commercial importance of steel and 

 iron in the world's work is second only to that of food production 

 and distribution, and easily first of all the metals produced. 

 The production, manufacture, and distribution of iron and steel 

 and their many products involve a very large investment of 

 capital, include hundreds of thousands of workers, and touch 

 intimately the life and activities of the smallest community and 

 in fact of every individual in our country. In almost every 

 city and many of the larger towns some kind of manufacturing 

 plant is to be found which transforms cast iron into finished 

 products ; and in many places there are factories that convert 

 steel into almost countless articles for all known purposes. 



In every phase of modern life and its boundless activities 

 iron in some form is indispensable. Continents are spanned 

 by iron and steel rails, and space and time are annihilated by 

 the iron monsters traveling over them. Every remotest part 

 of the world is connected with every other part by a veritable 

 network of iron wires. Rivers, lakes, and deep and wide abysses 

 are bridged and safely crossed by means of iron ; and oceans are 

 made into highways by steel ships, propelled by iron and steel 

 engines. The trackless air is also rapidly becoming a highway 

 for swiftly moving ships of steel. In all fields of production, as 

 mining, agriculture, lumbering, and fishing, in manufacturing, 

 building, and construction, in short, in all the world's work, iron 

 is the most useful and necessary of all the metals. 



Exercise : Use of steel and iron. Prepare a list and classify into 

 convenient groups the common uses of iron and steel as you may 

 observe them in the things of daily life, in the home and the com- 



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