National Geographic : 1917 Aug
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. THEI GENESIS OF STEEL 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 money 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).