n the steel-making establishments of the United States.

In the past few years the United States has jumped from an insignificant
position in the production of iron and steel to the first rank among the
iron-producing countries. This great advance is due to the fortunate
geographic position of the iron ore and the coal, and also to the
discovery of the Bessemer process of making steel.

In general it is more economical to ship the ore to the coal than _vice
versa_. The position of the steel-making plant is largely determined by
the cost of moving the coke and ore, together with that of getting the
steel to the place of use. Formerly, iron manufacture in the United
States was not profitable unless the coal, ore, and limestone[46] were
very near to one another.

These conditions still obtain in the southern Appalachian mineral
fields; the ore and the coal are at no great distance apart, and a great
iron-making industry, in which Birmingham and Bessemer form the
principal centre, has grown into existence. For the greater part the
coal is coked; and in this form less than a ton[47] is sufficient to
make a ton of pig-iron. The smelteries and rolling-mills are built at
places where the materials are most conveniently hauled.

In the past few years the iron and steel industry which formerly centred
about the navigable waters at the head of the Ohio River, has undergone
a readjustment. Rolling-mills and smelteries exist at Pittsburg and
vicinity, and at Youngstown, New Castle, and other nearby localities,
but greater steel-making plants have been built along the south shores
of Lakes Michigan and Erie, all of which have come about because of
reasons that are purely geographic.

Immense deposits of excellent hematite ore in the old mountain-ranges
near Lake Superior have recently become available. For the greater part
the ore is very easily quarried. In many instances it is taken out of
the quarry or pit by steam-shovels which dump it into self-discharging
hopper-cars. Thence the ore is carried on a down grade to the nearest
shipping-port on the lake. There it is dumped into huge bunkers built at
the docks, and from these it slides down chutes into the holds of the
steam-barges. A 6,000-ton barge is loaded in less than two hours; a car
is unloaded in a few seconds.

[Illustration: MOVEMENT OF IRON ORE]

Water transportation is very cheap compared with railway transportation,
even when the road is built and equipped as an