UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



5964 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



industry is the manufacture of rubber goods, 

 aince these have, in fact, the same uses. Such 

 goods being made of imported materials, they 

 are manufactured chiefly in tidewater cities, 

 where the raw material is landed, although 

 some important rubber mills have, also been 

 established in the interior, notably at Akron, 

 Ohio, which is the greatest consumer of crude 

 rubber in America. 



Clay and Sand Products. Manufactures using 

 minerals began in the United States with the 

 making of brick, although the earliest houses 

 were built with bricks imported from England. 

 The manufacture of brick and tile has now 

 developed into a vast industry, distributed 

 throughout almost the entire country. Five 

 states, however, produce more than half of the 

 clay products, as measured by value; in the 

 order of their importance these are Ohio, Penn- 

 sylvania, New Jersey, Illinois and New York. 

 One of the chief factors in the great develop- 

 ment of clay manufactures in these states has 

 been the presence of abundant cheap coal in 

 the immediate vicinity. Somewhat similar in 

 character are the manufactures of glass and 

 cement, which are carried on in substantially 

 the same regions. Glass, however, being made 

 largely with natural gas, has become an im- 

 portant industry in the Indiana and Ohio gas 

 fields. Cement is produced at various points 

 farther west. 



Other Mineral Manufactures. Metal manu- 

 factures in the United States began with the 

 erection of iron furnaces using charcoal, some of 

 these being built in New Jersey as early as 1710. 

 The iron industry, however, attained real impor- 

 tance only after the War of 1812. About 1840 

 charcoal gave way to anthracite coal as fuel, 

 which resulted in building up a group of iron 

 manufacturing towns in Eastern Pennsylvania. 

 Since about 1875 coke made from bituminous 

 coal has superseded anthracite as fuel in smelt- 

 ing iron ; in consequence of this substitution the 



center of the iron manufacturing industry is 

 now at Pittsburgh and other towns in the bi- 

 tuminous region, extending as far west as Chi- 

 cago and as far south as West Virginia. The 

 Chicago field, centered at Gary, Ind., bids fair 

 to outrank all other steel centers. Other iron 

 manufacturing districts have developed in 

 Northern Alabama, around Birmingham, and 

 also in the western section, notably at Pueblo, 

 Colo. At present the iron ore from the Lake 

 Superior region is shipped down the lakes, meet- 

 ing the coke from the Pennsylvania fields along 

 the southern edge of the Great Lakes, and in 

 some cases at towns some distance inland from 

 the lakes. Recently, however, a modern steel 

 plant has been established in Duluth, which 

 indicates a tendency to ship the coke to the 

 ore. That this change has not been generally 

 made as yet may be explained by the fact that 

 after the ore is smelted the market for the iron 

 is found more largely in the East than in the 

 West. 



Petroleum, although used to some extent in 

 its crude condition as fuel, is largely refined, 

 yielding gasoline, kerosene and a long list of 

 other products. The business of refining oil 

 is largely controlled by one gigantic corpora- 

 tion, the Standard Oil Company, which has 

 pipe lines from the principal oil-producing dis- 

 tricts to tidewater, where the most important 

 refineries are located. There are, however, 

 some large refineries in the interior of the 

 country, notably at Whiting, Ind., a few miles 

 from Chicago, which serve the adjacent region. 



Copper, zinc and lead are usually smelted in 

 the vicinity where mined, although some of the 

 ores are merely concentrated and then sent on 

 to the larger centers for final treatment. Alumi- 

 num, which is used for many purposes in place 

 of brass and also in place of copper for long 

 distance transmission, is smelted chiefly in 

 electric furnaces. The district around Niagara 

 is therefore an important source of aluminum. 



Transportation and Commerce 



Not many generations have passed since 

 nearly everything was produced on the prem- 

 ises where it was consumed ; to-day few people 

 consume any considerable part of what they 

 produce. For the most part, every one aims to 

 produce what he thinks he can sell for a good 

 price and depends upon buying in the market 

 what he wants to eat, wear and use in his home. 

 This change in conditions of life is largely the 

 result of improved transportation, which en- 



ables each class of people and each section of 

 the country, or indeed, of the world, *o produce 

 one article or class of articles and obtain in 

 exchange whatever else may be needed. 



Westward Trend by Trails. Since the earli- 

 est colonists in the United States came from 

 over the sea, they naturally settled first on 

 sheltered bays along the Atlantic seaboard, and 

 as population increased they pushed inland 

 along the rivers. At the head of canoe navi- 



