[Sidenote: =Great value of coal and iron=]
=231. Coal and Iron.= Next to the great farm crops, coal and iron are
the most valuable products of our country. The coal that is mined in
one year is worth five times as much as the gold and silver combined.
Our iron mines yield as much wealth in one year as the gold mines do in
three. Gold and silver are luxuries without which we could get along,
but our great factories, railroads, and steamship lines could not exist
without an abundance of iron and coal.
A hundred years ago there was almost no coal mined in this country. Now
we use more of it than any other land, and almost a million men make a
living by mining it.
[Sidenote: =Hard coal in Pennsylvania=]
[Sidenote: =Factories need coal=]
At first most of the coal produced was the hard anthracite of eastern
Pennsylvania. But this hard coal is found only in one small section of
Pennsylvania, whereas great beds of soft coal stretch from Pennsylvania
west to Washington. At present there is far more soft coal used than
anthracite. Pennsylvania is the leading state in the production of both
hard and soft coal, but West Virginia, Illinois, and Ohio are also
great coal states. Generally, where there are productive coal mines,
factories have been built, because most of them need a great deal of
coal for fuel.
[Illustration: IRON AND STEEL WORKS IN A SOUTHERN CITY
_From a photograph_]
[Sidenote: =Largest iron-ore deposits in the world=]
Iron was first worked by the colonists in the bogs of New England. Iron
mining, however, did not become a great industry until the latter part
of the last century. In that period the great iron "ranges" of Lake
Superior were opened up. These are the largest deposits of iron ore in
the world.
[Sidenote: =Carried to the smelters=]
Most of the ore lies in Minnesota. Here, far up in the northern woods,
thousands of men are blasting or digging out the red and rusty ore.
Huge steam shovels load a car in a few minutes, and in a short while a
trainload of ore is on its way to Duluth or Superior. From there it is
carried by steamer east, most likely to one of the Ohio towns on Lake
Erie. Here much of the ore is again loaded into cars and hauled to the
Pittsburgh region, there to be smelted.
[Sidenote: =Coal and iron support great industries=]
Pittsburgh has become the greatest iron and steel center of America.
Enormous quantities of coal are mined here and used for smelting the
iron ore that is shipped in. More people of western Pennsylvania and
eastern Ohio make a living by mining coal and making steel and iron
than anywhere else in America. Great blast furnaces melt the iron
ore. Steel works turn out huge quantities of rail and sheet steel.
Foundries make cast-iron products of all kinds. Vast shops are busily
engaged in producing locomotives and machines of endless variety.
Everywhere in this region are smoking chimneys and busy industrial
plants, all supported by coal and iron. The southern states, Alabama,
the Carolinas, Georgia, and Tennessee, also contain rich stores of coal
and iron. These resources were little used during slavery days. Now,
however, the southern states are digging coal for use in their great
factories and cotton mills, or sending it abroad. Birmingham, Alabama,
is one of the great coal and iron centers of the United States.