We could look forth from this eminence and see the whole mill yard, which was nearly a mile in extent. Over the "gas house"--a large building I hadn't noticed before, the source of gas for the open-hearth--and far to the left, were the Bessemers, spouting red gold against a very blue sky. On their right rose the familiar stacks of the open-hearth. I looked intently at them and wondered what Number 7 did at that moment--front-wall, back-wall, or tapping its periodic deluge of hot steel?
In the foreground, a variety of gables, and then the irregular roof, far beyond, that I knew must be the blooming-mill, because of the interesting yard with the muscular cranes, tossing about bars and shapes and sheets of steel. An immense system of railways everywhere, running down as far as the river bank, where were piles of cinder, and a trainload of ladles moving there to dump. A half-mile away another ironclad cluster of buildings, the tube mill, the nail mill, and the rest, with convenient rails running up to them.
I turned around. Near by, slightly beyond the foot of the skips, was that impressive hill of red dust, the ore pile. Iron ore was being taken away for the skips with one of those spider-like mechanisms that combine crane, derrick, and steam-shovel. It was built hugely, two uprights forty or fifty feet high, at a distance, I estimate, of a hundred yards, with their bases secured to railway cars. A crossbeam joined them, which was itself a monorail, along which a man-carrying car ran. From that car dropped chains, attaching themselves at the bottom to the familiar automatic shovel or scoop.
First the whole arrangement moved--the uprights, the crosspiece, and the monorail car--very slowly over the whole hill of ore, to a good spot for digging. Then the monorail car sped to the chosen position, and the shovel fell rapidly into the ore. With a mouthful secure, the chains lifted a little, enough to clear the remaining ore, and the car ran its mouthful to the hill's edge, to dump into special gondolas on railroad tracks. The whole gigantic ore-hill was within easy reach of a single instrument.
We went down the ladder-steps, and stopped near one of the furnaces. I rather hoped the stove-gang boss would talk. He did.