coal and load their empties. When the car is full, an old mule will drag it down the track to the main line, where the electric locomotive will pick it up on its circuit, and then the old mule will drag up another empty for them to fill.

The air is sweet in the mine, for at the head of the air shaft a giant fan 10 pumps down a steady current to feed the lungs of the miners and sweep the tunnels clean of the poisonous gases that would otherwise settle down from the crannies in the rock and destroy the mine in a burst of overwhelming flame. Sometimes such accidents occur. Sometimes the gas grows thick and a miner alone at his work sinks suddenly unconscious to the black 20 floor to die unless help comes speedily.

Often, too, great slivers of rock drop suddenly from the roof and crush out the life of the man who may be beneath. Death, when it comes, comes quickly; brave hearts are necessary, hearts that know no fear of sudden danger and that cannot be intimidated by the long hours of labor in the silent blackness.

Up in the sunshine of the world the 30 loaded cars of coal appear with clocklike regularity from the black square of the shaft mouth. High into the tipple tower they are carried and their contents there dumped into waiting bins; then the empty cars sink again into the dark opening and disappear. From the bins the coal slides down over shaking screens which separate the various sizes. Alongside the 40 screens, boys, blackened with coal dust, pick from the sliding torrent of coal the bits of slate and stone that have been mixed with it in the mine. Then through the screens the coal falls into other bins, the fine coal first, then larger sizes, and finally the great lumps that have passed over all the screen openings.

Beneath the tipple are railroad

The 50

tracks and trains of waiting cars. wind swirls about them black and visible with dust clouds. Down roars the coal. the coal. This is its final journey. Perhaps this long train will carry coal to the steel mills. There the red ore of Minnesota and the ebon fuel of Illinois will meet in necessary union that steel may be made. With clanking couplings the loaded train slides out from beneath the tipple. Far 60 down, five hundred feet below, the miners are working. Far off, a thousand miles away, the steam-shovel gangs are scooping up the red iron from the carved hillsides. Unconscious of each other they are working to a common end. And so we come to the next worker in this group of men who toil to give us the things we need.

OUR BROTHER OF THE STEEL MILL

The steel mills edge the lake front. 70 Beyond the ragged skyline of the roof and chimneys the blue water gleams and sparkles, but near the shore the water is roiled and stained a dull brick color, the color of iron ore. In from the lake a long steamer slowly steams. She is as long as a city block and her funnel is far aft, almost above her churning screws. Forward the long deep hull is filled with iron ore. She so rides low in the water with the weight of her cargo, as slowly she nears the shore and feels for the channel. At half speed she enters the narrow water and then glides with reversing screws to her place beside the dock. On her decks her crew greet the land, strong, agile men who have worked her down from Lake Superior, through miles of inland waters, with her tons of ore for 90 the waiting steel mills.

Above the ore dock is a skeleton frame of steel. High in its structure are tiny cabs that slide back and forth out over the open hatches of the ship. Here men operate the grab buckets,

huge hands of steel that swoop down on wire cables and snatch a ton or two of red ore from the ship. Up they soar, the ore fast in their clenched fists, and then beneath the traveling cabs they are borne inland to release the ore on the great red pile that lies behind the dock. Behind the piles of ore are piles of coal. Here ore and fuel 10 meet, and from their meeting will be born another product-steel.

The blast furnaces, in which the ore is melted and purified, are ready. Within their circular walls the furnace men pile in alternating layers the red ore, white limestone, and steel-gray coke, or coal from which the gas has been removed. The furnace is filled and closed. It is lighted. In the 20 intense heat of the burning coke the red ore melts and runs down like water through the limestone layers, which catch and hold the impurities in the ore. Outside, the men are waiting to

draw off the liquid iron. It is readyfrom the bottom of the furnace gushes a sudden stream of molten iron. Swiftly it flows through channels that have been cut in a great bed of sand. Slowly the liquid metal cools to dull 30 gray "pigs," or stout bars, of iron. From beneath the furnace a string of small cars jerks out along a narrow track. On each car are great cups, each filled with liquid iron. They are going to the mills for further treatment, for from liquid iron steel is made, a stronger and more useful material.

Within one of the great shed-like 40 buildings of corrugated iron there is a sudden gloom in contrast to the sunlight of the outer world. High up in the dark roof the yellow light slants down in dusty rays through glassless windows. Far as the eye can see, the vast room stretches, a huge gloomy room that reeks with gaseous heat.

Along the side of the building are the hearths, big brick furnaces with heavy doors, and from chinks in their faces shines here and there a light of such intensity that its brilliancy pains the naked eye.

Through the gloom move the steel workers-they are men who are brothers in labor of the steam-shovel work10 ers in the Iron Range, brothers in industry of the grimy miners of the coal fields-interdependent are they all, for without the steel mills there would be no need for the red ore of Mesaba; without the steel mill there would be less need for coal; and the steel mills would stand idle with cold hearths if the miners of coal or iron ceased from their labors. Strong men 20 are the steel workers. They are men trained by their work to move deftly and with unerring surety carry out their perilous handlings of the fluid metal. They are men with muscles of sinuous strength, muscles that you can see rippling beneath the soiled skin of naked arms and breasts. Their overalls are stained with the sweat and grime of their labor; their faces 30 are strained with the anxiety to perform their arduous duties.

room.

The train of cars bearing the ladles of molten iron rumbles into the hearth With a blinding glare of light the doors of a hearth are flung open. Peering through their blue glass goggles, and shielding their faces with their hands, the men carry out their perilous work. From a high suspended 40 crane in the blackness of the roof giant hooks on cords of steel seize the ladle from the flat cars and swing it to the hearth-mouth. There is a cascade of fire, a shower of sparks white as lightlike a cataract of falling stars the torrent of iron floods into the hearth. From piles beside the doors of the hearth the workers cast great lumps of

15. Mesaba, the Mesaba Range in Minnesota.

rich ore into the hearth-mouth. Then the doors are closed suddenly; there is 50 a sense of sudden blackness-the iron is now undergoing its transformation into steel.

In the semi-darkness a line of seemingly endless hearths, where iron is cooking into steel, stretches off into the distance. On the other side behind the hearths, a "heat" is ready to be "tapped," a hearth, or "heat," in which the molten metal has been 60 transformed to steel and is ready to be "tapped," or drawn off. From the blackness above, another crane swings down an empty ladle, a giant cup in which men might stand unseen. Slowly but surely it swings down into place beneath a vent in the rear of the hearth. The tap is opened. With a fountain flood of liquid fire the steel gushes like water into the waiting 70 ladle. In the flare of light the vast room becomes suddenly illuminated. White sparks leap comet-like high above the ladle's rim. Then abruptly the tap is closed and the slender cords of steel lift the ladle, still sputtering sparks of fire, and it is borne swinging down the long dark room to the place where the steel will be poured into the waiting molds to cool into gray ingots. 80

In another vast room the ingots, cherry red with heat, move skimming along the floor, propelled by countless rollers. This is the "blooming mill," where the ingots of metal are rolled into the desired shapes. The air rumbles with the thunder of the machinery. Back and forth roll the glowing ingots; back and forth, each time passing between long rolls of steel that 90 compress the malleable metal with each passage. Slowly the ingots change in shape; thinner and thinner they become, until at last the log of steel has become transformed into a long thin graying strip, a hundred feet in length. Once again the long strip

rumbles along the floor and then a knife, with even strokes, chops the long bars of metal into equal pieces of manageable size and weight.

Through all this maze of swiftly passing metal, whose touch would kill or maim for life, the workers move, strange dark figures that direct the ruddy bars and watch with trained 10 eyes the passage of each piece of steel. In other mighty buildings other men are working. Here the billets, or rough logs, of steel still soft with heat are passed through other rolls and from the lips of the rolls the steel emerges compressed into its final shape of angle bar or broad flat plate.

From the iron range has come the ore. With coke, baked from the coal 20 that other men have dug far beneath the surface of the earth, the ore has been refined and melted into liquid form. With gas released from the coal in the cooking process the liquid iron has been superheated into steel. Miner of coal or iron and steel-mill worker, all have contributed their vital parts to the making of the great gray piles of steel that are stacked beside the 30 rails. From the mine and the open hearth have come the rails of steel that bind our cities into one; structural steel that carries high the city skyscraper; plates that sheathe the huge bilges of mighty ships. Here is the steel for peace and war; steel for plowshares, automobiles, tools, and boilers; steel for guns, shells, turrets, and battle cruisers. Who made this 40 steel that is so necessary? The coal miner in the gaseous pit, the shovel man in the iron mine, the sweating giants peering through blue glass goggles before the hearths of the steel mills; they gave us steel-steel for its many uses, steel and coal for the mighty train, steel for another group of men who join in the great plan of helpful labor:

OUR BROTHER OF THE RAILROAD

High in his cab the locomotive engi- 50 neer peers through his goggles into the night. Against his face the cold air brushes like a flood in the mile-aminute flight of his engine. Above, the stars stand steady in the sky, but beside him the country seems to flow past as his tremendous machine of steel crashes along the slender rails. There is a sudden roar, and the engineer glances back at the bridge that has 60 already disappeared in the night behind. Far down the track the green lights of the semaphore give assurance of safety. Behind him the light from the windows of the Pullmans mark the telegraph poles with flickering touches of white. The whistle wails at the crossing-white faces peer in the quick gleam. The limited tears past. A wave of dust-charged wind surges into 70 the still air, and the red lights on the rear car fade into the distance as the train tears on.

In the sleeping cars are men and women and little children. They have bought their tickets and in blind confidence they trust that the green stars of the semaphore will guard them safe to their destination, and that the sure hand and keen eye of the engineer so will protect them through the long hours of the night.

In the rocking cab of the engine the fireman feeds his fire with the gleaming black lumps of coal from the mine. Coal is the fuel, coal torn from the depths of earth by blackened miners that you and I may ride from place to place and that freights of food and clothes and things of varied usefulness 90 may be transported for our health and happiness. Steel is the material of which this fleeting monster is built; steel are the cars, strong enduring steel that cannot burn or splinter if wreck is our misfortune. Steel are the

rails which bear us. Steel; wrought in the fiery hearths from the red ore of the mines, by men whose labors have made possible this mighty train.

Transportation! Think you for a moment of this word. A hundred million people live by its magic contact. Gone are the days of lumbering ox trains, the slowly-towed canal boat, 10 or the heavy-sailing river craft. In frigid cars the fruits of California are carried across the land that we who live in snowy Maine may breakfast on oranges that but two weeks ago hung on the deep green trees. By train are borne the materials of which our houses are built, our clothes are made, stomachs fed. Without their unfailing service cities would starve. With 20 a mazing skein of tracks men have united our vast country into one community. And we may exchange the wares of the eastern seaboard for the produce of our western coast with greater ease than a hundred years ago our great-great-grandfathers could trade from farm to some town near by.

Our

Brothers all in industry and in kindred interest are the workers who 30 make possible these magic aspects of the modern world-and behind the workers who labor with their hands and the strength of thigh and back and arm stand those other workers who with brain and pencil plan and execute the high-visioned schemes that make practical the nation's industries -interdependent all, for each of us lives by our neighbors' work, and we 40 by our small help contribute.

High over the roofs of the city the carved cornice of the skyscraper cuts the blue of the sky. From the lofty tower a flag throws its crimson stripes and azure field of stars against the sky. Steel-ribbed structure, planned by quiet-eyed engineers and sketched by patient draftsmen, you too could not exist save by the work of men who

delve in coal and ore and those who 50 breathe the stifling heat of steel-mill hearth.

Far down in the earth the deep-dug foundations firmly rest on bed rock— from concrete footholds rise the frames of steel, up fifty stories above the crowded streets. The rattle of the riveters reverberates above the roar of truck and street car. On slender beams of steel the structural workers 60 perch, firm-footed as birds on the dead limb of a lofty pine tree. Up from the loaded truck the steel cables lift a dozen tons of steel-high they swing secure above the street. Red hot the rivets fly through the air, caught a story up and driven home, steel hammer against bolt of steel.

Whence came this giant structure that will soon house the population 70 of as many people as might fill a country town? From mine and mill; over rail of steel transported; by thousands of silent workers it has been constructed; by men each of whom has played his part in its construction without perhaps the gladness that might come could he have seen the final product of his work.

From their lofty places on the skele- 80 ton frame of the New York City skyscraper the workers look down over the roofs of the great city. Far below in the cañons of the street, the street cars move like beetles in a line. The swarms of moving jots of black are men and women who crowd the sidewalks. Beyond the roofs is the sudden open breadth of blue water. Along the shore the wharves push out, shed- 90 housed, and between is the green water of the slips where ships may tie up alongside the docks and discharge their priceless cargoes. Here, about the ships and wharves, are still other men whose labor helps to carry on the interdependent task of modern life.

92. slip, a space between wharves, for vessels.