=The Steel Industry.= Interesting statistics as to the extent of the steel industry have been compiled. The United States and Canada together produce about half of the world’s output. According to the last figures, there are employed in the iron and steel industry of this country 1,426,014 workers. At the present time the capacity of all the shops is taxed to the utmost and hundreds of new factories have been erected. Canada and the United States are cooperating in the production of ships. The huge bridge works are giving over all of their machinery and time to the building of new boats to carry men and food in support of the Allied armies in France.
=The Use of Steel.= Steel is made by melting iron and combining it with a certain proportion of carbon. The softest grade of steel contains less than one per cent. of carbon, the hardest contains about thirty per cent. Iron furnishes almost every useful thing that is necessary to our life in the community. When we have food and clothes, we are then ready to take up the routine of living a part of the common life of our city or town. Iron is used extensively in building our homes. The house is held together with nails made of iron; its plumbing, its lighting, its heating are all made possible by the use of steel.
Possibly the building in which we work is a steel building, if not, it may be made of reenforced concrete and this form of construction is dependent upon the use of iron. The product toward which we are contributing our industry, whatever it may be, is dependent upon commerce, transportation, and communication; and these great branches of activity are dependent upon steel. Iron can be melted and cast into a thousand different shapes. It is used to make the most simple kitchen utensil and the largest and most complicated machinery. Again, it is melted in larger quantity, combined with carbon, and put through the rolling-mills. By this process it may become steel rails, or be made into plates and huge sheets that form the protective outer skin of the great ships of war. It is rolled out thin and corrugated to be used as sheeting for houses, and sides of freight-cars, and roofs of houses; or it may issue in things as delicate as knitting-needles or the finest springs which form the adjustment and motive power in the most costly watches. It is used in the construction of buildings that tower up hundreds of feet above the level of the street, and is the only thing that has been found so far that can be used successfully for such a purpose. At the same time this most necessary substance is formed into pliable rope and used to draw the miner and the minerals he mines from the depths of the earth, and to keep the elevators running up and down in hotels, office buildings, and apartment houses. The finest cambric needles are first cousins to the great guns with which the Germans were able to shell Paris from a distance of seventy-five miles.