Iron ores do not occur in plains like those of Egypt, Mesopotamia, northern India, eastern China, and Guatemala, where the world's earliest civilizations grew up. Nor are such ores abundant and easily obtained in limestone countries like Syria and Greece. Italy also has only a little iron, and most of that comes from the island of Elba. Thus practically all of the great countries of antiquity are deficient in natural supplies of iron. Moreover, in those countries and also in some outlying regions such as Asia Minor and the Libyan Desert where ore is found, there are comparatively few trees, and thus the smelting of iron was greatly limited. With their small available supply of iron the civilized people of early times made only such small tools as knives, hoes, and weapons. Simple machines such as the steam engine of Hero of Alexandria, 130 B.C., and the hand loom which was widely used, had indeed been invented, but could not he extensively developed for lack of iron.
Abundant Iron Deposits and the Character of Modern Civiliza tion.—Modern civilization, unlike ancient, is located in regions where it is easy to procure both iron and the fuel to smelt it. The most energetic races dwell in countries such as northern Spain, France, Belgium, Germany, England, and Sweden, which contain abundant iron ores and are naturally covered with heavy forests. Hence when these regions emerged from barbarism the use of iron increased. People were able to use it freely for such purposes as armor, nails, and plows, for which it had previously been too expensive. In the days of Queen Elizabeth the demand for iron became so great that laws had to be passed to prevent the forests from being wholly con sumed as fuel in iron furnaces.
At this stage another geographical condition became important. England, northern France, Belgium, and Germany contain great deposits of coal located close to the iron ore. In England, soon after 1600 A.D., people discovered that by converting coal into coke they could use it for smelting. The rapid adoption of this method so increased the available supply of iron that such large machines as the steam engine could be turned out in large numbers. The ability of modern civilization to use iron for tools and machinery is one of the chief causes of the contrast between ancient civilization with its emphasis on art, literature, philosophy, religion, and government and modern civilization with its emphasis on science, on man's material betterment, and on the use of natural resources through manufactur ing, transportation, commerce, and mining. The great civilization of the future will place equal emphasis on the idealism of the ancients and the materialism of the present.
Where Iron Ore is Most Favorably Located.—Countries like
the United States, England, Germany, and France, where coal and iron are both abundant, have a tremendous advantage. Countries like Sweden and Spain, which have plenty of ore but little coal lose much of this advantage. They have to send the ore to places, like England and Germany, well supplied with fuel. This is cheaper than to take the coal to the ore, for two tons of coal are needed to smelt a ton of iron ore.
Our own country is particularly favored because it has enormous deposits of both coal and iron. They are, to be sure, at a considerable distance from er, for the largest coal beds center in Penn s and largest iron deposits are in the Lake Superior region. For most of the between the two, however, transportation by the waterway of the Great Lakes, and the ore can easirre' carried to the fuel. Moreover, the_eoal is near the center of the great market of the northeastern United States, so thae'afterismade into iron it does not have to travel far before being used. During the first part of the Great War, while the other great iron-producing countries were fighting, the use of iron in America increased as never before. The excellence of both the coal and the ore in the United States will probably help the country to maintain the leadership in the iron industry which it then obtained. Over 90 per cent of the world's annual production of 1,700,000,000 tons of minerals consists of coal and iron and a third of this is mined in the United States (see Fig. 54).
The United States Steel Corporation.—Since iron is the most important of the materials used in manufacturing, it has led to in dustrial combinations of enormous size. The Great German Steel Combine controls practically the entire steel business in Germany and was long the largest business combination outside the United States. The United States Steel Corporation, however, is even larger. •It has reached its present size because economy demands that a great number of operations in several different places should be performed under one management. In producing pig iron it is neces sary first to have great ore beds in the Lake Superior district or else where. Next the ore must be carried by lake and rail to the vicinity of the coal mines in Pennsylvania. Coal must be mined and converted into coke and then brought to the factory, while limestone must also be quarried. When a single company owns mines, quarries, steam boats, railroads, coke ovens, and factories it saves a great amount of waste and a large number of profits which would go to the middle man if the various raw materials and half-finished products changed hands after each operation.