[Illustration: STEEL FRAMEWORK OF THE FLATIRON BUILDING, NEW YORK CITY]
The United States Steel Corporation is the largest combination of capital in the world. It was organized in March, 1901, under the laws of New Jersey, for the manufacture and sale of steel products. This giant corporation was formed by the union of ten large corporations, each of which was, in turn, made up of smaller companies. Its total capitalization is $1,404,000,000, or one half of all the money in the United States. Its property consists of 149 steel works, with an annual capacity of 9,000,000 tons; 18,000 coke furnaces; over 100,000 acres of land; and 125 lake vessels and several small railroads. The Corporation employs over 150,000 men, to whom it pays in Wages annually over $120,000,000.
When on a wet morning one puts on rubbers and a rain coat, one scarcely wonders about the history of the articles that give so much protection and comfort. The story of rubber is an interesting one. The substance at first was called "elastic gum." About 1770 it was discovered that the gum would rub out lead pencil marks. It was imported into Great Britain and sold for this purpose, and because of this property its name was changed to rubber. The correct name of the material now is caoutchouc, though its common name is India-rubber or simply rubber. It is obtained from the sap of certain tropical trees and shrubs. The best quality of rubber comes from Brazil, though supplies are procured from other parts of South America, from Central America, the West Indies, Africa, and parts of tropical Asia.
The details of collecting the sap and preparing it for market vary somewhat according to locality and the nature of the trees or shrubs from which it comes. In the region of the Amazon, when the sap is to be obtained from a tree, cuts are made each morning in the bark. The milky sap that exudes is collected in little tin or clay cups fastened to the trunk. At the end of about ten hours these cups are emptied into larger ones, and on the morning of the following day new incisions are made in each tree, about eight inches below the old ones. This process is continued until incisions have been made in the bark from a height of about six feet down to the ground; the lower down on the trunk of the tree, the better is the quality of the sap. For the evaporation of the sap, a fire is built of material yielding dense volumes of smoke. Workmen dip wooden paddles into the liquid and hold them in the smoke until the sap solidifies and acquires a slightly yellow tinge. They repeat the process of dipping the paddle into the sap and holding it in the smoke, until the paddle is covered with a layer of the dried gum about an inch and a half in thickness. This layer is then removed from the paddle and hung up to dry; and the process of evaporation is commenced anew. The raw material, which is an elastic, yellowish, gum-like substance, is sent away to be vulcanized. From the vulcanized product are made the rubber goods of commerce.