CHAPTER III. THE EPIC OF STEEL

It was the boast of a Roman Emperor that he had found the Eternal
City brick and left it marble. Similarly the present generation
of Americans inherited a country which was wood and have
transformed it into steel. That which chiefly distinguishes the
physical America of today from that of forty years ago is the
extensive use of this metal. Our fathers used steel very little
in railway transportation; rails and locomotives were usually
made of iron, and wood was the prevailing material for railroad
bridges. Steel cars, both for passengers and for freight, are now
everywhere taking the place of the more flimsy substance. We
travel today in steel subways, transact our business in steel
buildings, and live in apartments and private houses which are
made largely of steel. The steel automobile has long since
supplanted the wooden carriage; the steel ship has displaced the
iron and wooden vessel. The American farmer now encloses his
lands with steel wire, the Southern planter binds his cotton with
steel ties, and modern America could never gather her abundant
harvests without her mighty agricultural implements, all of which
are made of steel. Thus it is steel that shelters us, that
transports us, that feeds us, and that even clothes us.

This substance is such a commonplace element in our lives that we
take it for granted, like air and water and the soil itself; yet
the generation that fought the Civil War knew practically nothing
of steel. They were familiar with this metal only as a curiosity
or as a material used for the finer kinds of cutlery. How many