that is so typical of america and typical of the steel industry literally the backbone of a thousand industries is a panorama that reveals the magnitude of any one of the major mills where the manufacture of steel involves a tremendous investment here before a worker can be given a job the company by which he is employed has to navarette just more than eleven thousand dollars for each man employed and that does not include wages incidentally no one unusual feature of this industrial scene which would not be found in any other country in the world the automobiles are of work in the mills men who are now read right in the history of the industry into such a center activity the raw materials are poured from train and shipped thousands of tons of coal aid for the blast furnaces mountains of iron ore and vast quantities of limestone they are charging a furnace from which the iron is to be belted cook to provide an intense heat in the base of the furnace as a super heated air blast passes through it line stone to flux the impurities from the are up to the top goes the laden larry to feed one of these giants that may eat up as much as three thousand tons of solid raw materials a day now they are preparing to tap a furnace at the base where they may draw off as much as one hundred tons charge of very much in command with modern mechanical devices and highly developed safety measures that enable them to control the flowing metal with less danger to themselves than you face every day in your home or on the street today the m m steel mill is a safer place to work as any industrial establishment in fact company after company has prided itself on winning safety trophies which stand for a prolonged period without a single serious accident a sample of the metal will be cast into a small block and cooled for a quick analysis by the metallurgical laboratory to check its quality meanwhile the flaming river is directed through channels which lead to the edge of the capping be poured into a large container called a mixer holding many tons and here are kept hot so that it can be used in its modern state in one of the three major processes in making steel of these the bessemer converter process is the oldest for producing a tonnage product available at low cost for a multitude of uses here stand the operators in safety behind shatterproof glass number three is going to  length of the arena very different from the spectacular bessemer is a squat little electric furnace which makes special steels because of its smaller capacity and the ease with which it can be controlled so accurately from this process come the high grade alloys theo's such as stainless and all sorts of special steels with special qualities and then there are the open hot while the roaring flame in fireworks from bessemer converters still provide a thrilling spectacle and capacity for producing steel in the electric furnace has been increasing in the last few years ninety percent of steel today is produced in open h because of the demand for tailor made steels in large quantities which can be produced with this flexible and efficient method and by the way there is one interesting factor in the making of steel just as important as the virgin iron fresh from or smelt it in the blast furnace it is scrap most of the scrap metal will be found on route to the open heart department remounted scrap steel constituting about fifty percent of the total steel produce today there is a car load of here and there is another and there is a car that may hold all that is left of your nine hundred twenty nine automobile now on its way to become part of a steel and a better steel perhaps for your next car in this huge structure the open hearth floor which is typical of american steel mills a long line of furnaces hold steel in the making steel that charged it will melt like glass and fill any holes that may have been burned through the lining by the previous heat forming a solid bottom for the fresh charge then the charging begins from the train load of scrap which has been brought close to the furnace and electric charging machine lifts box after box and pushes its burden through the door of the furnace the operator sitting at a safe distance spinning the ram and dumping its load there as the rumble  giant traveling crane overhead moving in with its burden a huge ladle of molten iron from the mixer where it has been awaiting this final step in the process of becoming steel they are placing the chute into position for pouring the charge and as the crane draws near note that the men actually handling the metal are either sheltered high up on the crane in the cab or operate electrical controls across the floor there goes the charge fifty tons of white hot liquid metal heated to approximately two thousand eight hundred degrees fahrenheit hazardous frightful danger in this job not at all millions of dollars have been spent by modern steel mills of america for safety devices are employed which not only protect the work of promoting metals from metallic dust and from flying chips but also from human carelessness nation of steel production has made work simpler and safer men are not doing dangerous jobs that the machine gun do more safely but more man and more co man are required to control the machine and the safety achievement of the steel industry is a high tribute to the intelligence of these men who work in the mills like good cooks they must know the temperature of the brew and  measure it on an optical parameter while it boils in a white hot pool as big as a fair sized room and like good cooks they even take several samples of the brew using a long handled small ladle to pick up enough liquid steel to cast a test into it congeals almost instantly and assume dumped out and handled quite readily when it is cooled it will go to the metallurgical laboratory for a thorough but quick examination they fall the metal from which  taken is drawn off to be made into steel thousands of different kinds of steels are made like this every day eight steel strange as it may seem a custom built product each different steels the filling of a prescription to bear certain stew be of a certain hardness to be soft flexible dough bride to be tailor made for each one of thousands of uses now they are ready to tap a big one and they must reach across to the opposite side of the furnace to break through the clay plug tapping hole from the inside but the place to see the spectacular part of the operation is on the other side of the open how often this is where an asbestos called worker burns through the exterior of the clay plug tap hole with an oxygen top a few more ramming blows with a long tapping iron and there she floats two hundred tons of steel produced according to specifications for one of an infinite variety of uses just the proper percentages of carbon another elements are retained in every heat of steel so that it will possess the exact characteristics needed a man on the until the slag the undesirable portion of the charge rises to the top like froth and overflows to find a future usefulness as a byproduct another lines of business the electric crane moves into a line a matter of fashioning from the in gets the form of product desired the steel man says that this fiery liquid freezes a mediately in the mold he means that it congeals when its temperature over is down a thousand degrees or so and within an hour is frozen to hard on the outside for rolling thus it is not of a uniform consistency so after the malls are stripped from the and gets weighing from five to fifteen tons of piece the huge castings are hauled away to a friend is called a soaking pit in which they are heated until of the same temperature throughout and which holds them at exactly the right heat they and will of the modern blacksmith the rolling mail now the steel is fairly on its way to you because in this one chunk of white hot metal there may be thousands of cans kitchen utensils all perhaps the materials for automobile bodies refrigerators and innumerable things in everyday use and these are universal use of steel is possible they cause it's cost is only two or three cents a pound the lowest of any important metal the wide strip continuous ma the consuming public in the form of lower prices for better steel amounting to nearly three hundred million dollars a year compared with cost of ten years ago automobile users alone are leaving seventy five million dollars a year but in spite of many more men are needed in the mills and employment is now at the highest level in the industries history there goes that in get us all now a hot flat flattened an elongated on its way to further reduction now reduced by further rolling to the size of armor plate and now becoming a huge strip several feet wide and less than a quarter of an inch thick it moves to the table of where it will await its turn in the coiling machine coil hot it is subsequently cold rolled flat after passing through an acid cleansing bath two processes which vastly improve the smoothness and polish of the surface before it is cut into the lengths prescribed by the factory to which it is to be in general only the rarer metals such as gold or platinum have ever offered much resistance to corrosive attack until the steel industry developed stainless steel which have made this metal practical for and then with a variety of uses wherein it combines beauty with resistance to rust and corrosion look at that polish a permanent mirror like surface perhaps destined for some swanky cocktail bar or the kitchen of a modern home here is an operation which constitutes in itself a critical test of steel the piercing of a solid billet to form a seamless to and here is another interesting operation also a critical test of steel the making of a car wheel the wheel must retain its specification factors of strength and ability to take it when subsequently it will be skyscraper or perhaps a great steel bridge the operators of the mayo up there above it and completely shut off from the heat of that white hot steel turn it spin around roll it by pressing buttons or throwing levers and finally deliver it at the far end of the mails are completely finished job steals passed through various mill processes all combinations of processes in order to make them suited to a live variety of uses in any giant ladle of molten metal there may be steel that is destined to defeat time and distance to provide the framework of mighty buildings and to render into the data life of every citizen in thousands of things that provide comfort and convenience with a company called for steel from every section america is a demand for the basic material without which life and living standards as we know them today would be impossible deal has kept pace with and anticipated the increasing needs of the nation