INDUSTRY'S GREATEST ASSET-STEEL 



By William Joseph Showalter 



SURELY that is a stranger alchemy 

 than was possessed by the genii 

 who peopled the days of the Ara- 

 bian Nights, which can take crumbling 

 brown hematite ore from the ranges of 

 Minnesota, friable black bituminous coal 

 from the heart of the mountains of 

 Pennsylvania, crushed gray limestone 

 from the quarries of Ohio, soft red cop- 

 per from the mines of Montana, downy 

 white fiber from the fields of Alabama, 

 pungent drab dust from the nitrate re- 

 gion of Chile, impalpable yellow sulphur 

 from the beds of Louisiana, and, adding 

 to them the level-seeking impulse of Ni- 

 agara's waters, compound potions out of 

 whose fumes rise guns and swords and 

 shells and explosives which must con- 

 quer the power that has made the whole 

 world afraid. 



And yet, stripped of its confusing de- 

 tails, such is the wonderful story of the 

 making of the vast quantities of the fun- 

 damental munitions of war and of the 

 great task which falls to the lot of in- 

 dustry in the world's common cause 

 against Germany. It is a magic tale in 

 which fact outruns fancy, truth makes 

 fiction an unimaginative fabricator, and 

 the real appears more strange than the 

 extravagancies of a dream. But when 

 we have seen the yielding hematite, as 

 soft as a sand pile, becoming crucible 

 steel, whose hardness is adamantine ; 

 when we have watched the odors from 

 the coke oven becoming pent-up power 

 mightier than ten thousand demons ; 

 when we have beheld the cotton of the 

 field become so highly explosive that it 

 must first be tamed before it is docile 

 enough for use even in the biggest of 

 guns, then we will appreciate some of the 

 weirdly wonderful transformations that 

 science, applied to industry, can produce. 



THE GENESIS OF STEEE 



The present article deals only with one 

 phase of this marvelous story — the mak- 



ing of the steel for the guns and shells 

 which America will use in her war 

 against the Kaiser and his cohorts. It 

 naturally begins at Hibbing, Minn., the 

 iron-ore capital of the world and the 

 richest village on the planet; for here is 

 located the Hull Rust mine, a hole in the 

 ground which rivals Galliard Cut at 

 Panama. 



Most streets in Hibbing begin at one 

 man-made precipice and end at another ; 

 for, not content to be the proud possessor 

 of the biggest iron mine in existence, this 

 enterprising little metropolis has gath- 

 ered several other sizable ones around her 

 as a hen gathers her brood. In 1910 

 the population of the iron town was less 

 than nine thousand, and yet it had a 

 street-lighting system as ornamental as 

 that of Cleveland, Minneapolis, or De- 

 troit, and far more beautiful than that of 

 the nation's capital. Great bronze posts 

 surmounted by groups of four or five arc 

 lights make the village — for it is too rich 

 and prosperous and content to aspire to 

 the role of town or city — appear the last 

 word of modernity in municipal lighting. 



The streets are paved, and everybody 

 seems to have an automobile ; so that 

 street-cars would be about as necessary 

 as a fifth wheel to a wagon. Going up 

 to Hibbing from Duluth, one gets his 

 first idea that the ore capital must have 

 money to burn, for in the parlor cars and 

 day coaches alike appear signs which 

 warn against playing cards for monev in 

 railroad trains. • 



To get some idea of Hull Rust mine, 

 imagine a great terraced amphitheater 

 cut out of rolling ground, half a mile 

 wide and nearly two miles long. Dump 

 Gatun Dam into it and there would still 

 be a yawning chasm unfilled. Put a ten- 

 story office building into its deepest 

 trench and the top of the flagpole would 

 barely reach to the line of the original 

 surface (see page 124), 



