[Illustration: ROLLING INGOTS.]

Some thirty years ago there were but two Bessemer converters in the
United States, and the manufacture of steel did not reach then five
hundred tons per annum. In 1890 the product was more than five million
tons.

In 1872 the price of steel was one hundred and eighty-six dollars per
gross ton. It can be purchased now at varying prices less than thirty
dollars per ton. The consumption of seventy millions of people is so
great that it is difficult to imagine how so enormous a mass of almost
imperishable material can be absorbed, and the latest figures show a
consumption greatly in excess of those mentioned as the sum of
manufactures.

We turn again for the comparison without which all figures are valueless
to the good year 1643, when the "General court" passed a resolve
commending the great progress made in the manufacture of iron which they
had licensed two years before, and granted the company still further
privileges and immunities upon condition that it should furnish the
people "with barre iron of all sorts for their use at not exceedynge
twenty pounds per ton." We recall the first little piece of hollow ware
made in America. We remember how old the old world is said to be and how
long the tribes of men have plodded upon it, and then the picture
appears of the progress that has grown almost under our eyes. The real
Age of Steel began in 1865. It is not yet thirty years old. By
comparison we are impressed with the fact that the real history of the
metal is compressed into less than half an ordinary lifetime.