46 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



ture of gas, with all the consequent by- 

 product possibilities. 



In the good old days when coal could be 

 had for a shilling or so a ton, the women- 

 folk of the miners at one of the Sydney 

 workings used to provide hot water for 

 the weekly wash by the simple practice of 

 digging a hole ten or twelve inches deep 

 at the water's edge, filling it with pebbles 

 and setting a candle to it. By this means 

 they had plenty of boiling water, and the 

 supply continued for weeks or months 

 unless the fire was extinguished. 



This incident has been quoted in a 

 government report to illustrate the high 

 percentage of gas. No estimate is given 

 of the cost of the hot water at present 

 prices of coal, but it is surely proof of 

 Sydney's claim to coal "at tide-water" — 

 the only coal at tide-water on the Atlantic 

 seaboard. 



With this unlimited supply of fuel 

 suitable for coke, limestone in abun- 

 dance, and iron ore near at hand, Cape 

 Breton has the three requisite raw mate- 

 rials for that "cheapest ton of steel" 

 which Andrew Carnegie has said assured 

 a nation supremacy. 



But. above all, Cape Breton's commer- 

 cial advantage lies in her facilities for 

 water transport. All other important 

 iron-producing districts of the continent 

 are far inland. Cape Breton's maritime 

 position relieves her industry of the bur- 

 den of railway freight hauls for raw- 

 material and gives her a corresponding 

 advantage over inland competitors in de- 

 livery of the finished product to foreign 

 markets. 



In iqiS the island produced 512.377 

 net tons of steel ingots and 415.808 net 

 tons of pig-iron. Figures of the actual 

 production of war material by the Syd- 

 ney industries are not yet available, but 

 they may be estimated from the fact that 

 an army of 16.000 men was employed in 

 the steel plant and collieries through 

 more than four years of war. working 

 night and day. the products ranging from 

 steel rails, shell blanks, and barbed wire 

 to chemicals for the manufacture of high 

 explosives. During the war 705.000 gal- 

 lons of toluene were manufactured in 

 Cape Breton. 



Due to their part in the making of 

 steel, the island's rich deposits of lime- 

 stone and dolomite are, next to coal, the 

 most extensively developed of her min- 

 eral resources. The production of lime- 

 stone alone, for 1918, was considerably 

 more than 400,000 tons. The largest 

 areas are operated by the corporations 

 controlling the Sydney industries and all 

 of them are near the invaluable water 

 transport which the Bras d'Or Lakes 

 afford. 



The city of Sydney shares with the 

 towns of North Sydney and Sydney 

 Mines, across the harbor, one of the 

 finest ports in North America. It was 

 founded as the capital of the island when 

 Cape .Breton was a separate province, 

 and was a garrison town up to the time 

 of the Crimean War. 



Though its founding completed Louis- 

 burg's ruin, it never in any way ap- 

 proached the military importance of that 

 fortress. But it has a military heritage 

 of some well-laid streets, and its park is 

 outside the town because, so the story 

 goes, one of the military governors lost 

 the title to the original site at a poker 

 game. 



Sydney's coal and steel industries are 

 rapidly making it a great commercial 

 center, and it has now a five-million-dol- 

 lar ship-plate rolling mill, which presages 

 steel shipbuilding on its own waterfront 

 with its own steel. 



NORSEMEN CAME TO THE ISLAND FOR 

 TIMBER 



In earlier times the whole island was 

 well wooded with hemlock, oak, ash, 

 birch, elm, maple, beech, and pine, as 

 well as the spruce and fir now predomi- 

 nant. The Norsemen came here for tim- 

 ber, and within a generation the craft of 

 the Clyde shipbuilders loading lumber 

 were familiar in Bras d'Or waters. 



Forest fires have depleted the finest 

 areas, and the export has largely fallen 

 off, but in 1918 the Cape Breton col- 

 lieries used nearly 12.000,000 lineal feet 

 of pit timber, most of it produced on the 

 island. The wood-pulp industry is a 

 source of large revenue and one in which 

 much American capital has been invested. 



