opled because food-stuffs can be transported to these regions more
economically than they can be grown there. Thus, owing to the
improvements in iron and steel manufacture, the farmer of Minnesota, the
planter of Louisiana, the miner of Colorado, and the factory operative
of Massachusetts have each the same comforts of living that are enjoyed
by all the others, and have them at scarcely more than half the cost of
fifty years ago.

[Illustration: STEEL MANUFACTURE--THE NATIONAL STEEL COMPANY'S SMELTERY
AND ROLLING-MILLS, MINGO JUNCTION, OHIO]

The gradual decrease in the production of the silver mines near the
present site of Ergasteria proved a beginning of the fall of Athens; and
when gold was discovered in the Perim Mountains of Macedonia, the seat
of Greek power moved thither. Philip of Macedon hoarded the treasure
from the mines of Pangaeus, and with the capital thus acquired his son,
Alexander the Great, conquered the East, implanted Hellenic business
methods there, and drew the various trade routes between Europe and Asia
under one control.

In the fifteenth century copper from the mines near Budapest and silver
from the Schwarz Mountains of Germany were the resources that made
Germanic Europe pre-eminent. The wresting of the trade in these two
metals from Venice caused the rise of Antwerp and brought immense gains
to Luebeck, London, Brussels, Augsburg, and Nuremberg. In the latter part
of the nineteenth century copper again reached a high position of
importance from the fact that upon it largely depends electric motive
power and transportation.

=Iron.=--Iron is one of the most widely diffused of metals. It is abundant
in the sun; meteorites contain from more than ten to eighty or ninety
per cent. of it; all earths and rocks contain at least traces of it; and
in various places the deposits of ore in nearly pure form aggregate
cubic miles in extent.

In only a few localities is iron ore found in a metallic or "native"
form. Many meteorites consist of metallic iron mixed with nickel and
manganese, and in Greenland a volcanic dyke or ledge of metallic iron is
known to exist. The iron of commerce is derived from "ores," or chemical
compounds of iron and oxygen, or iron and carbon. The cheapness of the
product depends upon the ease with which the ore may be quarried,
transported to coal, and smelted. The following are the ores commonly
employed in the production of iron:

_Red hematite_ has a reddish metallic