The herald., 1922-10-12

tfTepareo Dy the national Geographic SO
ciety. Washington. d. c.
Once more the Ruhr valley, Ger
many's beehive of industry, has com,
to the fore in world interest, with tn,
suggestion that France may seize thi.
region to force the payment of repara
tiOns.
Merely as a river, this Ruhr, barely
$50 miles long. is not important. Down
the Rhine below where Caesar bridged
1t at Andernach, below where Yankee
dOughbOys now wash their shirts in
Its green food and British Tommies
play at soccer above the bones of bish-
ops, the small crooked stream flows in
from the east. But it flows through
and lends its name to a tiny region
not equaled anywhere for intensity of
industry and potential political impor-
lance.
Viewed in the light of events since
The war, it seems safe to predict that
the course of life in Europe for the
next generation may depend on what
Is happening now along this short,
crooked, but busy stream.
The Ruhr, as this famous region is
commonly called, is not political sub
division of Germany; 1t is merely an
Industrial district, smaller in area than
Rhode Island, but crowded with mines
and factories from end to end and
settled, in spots, with 1880 people to
the square mile.
Tiny as 1t is, mere speck on the
map, 1t produces In normal times over
1OO,OOO,OOO tons of coal year: il
mines much Of the iron ore its many
mills consume, and the steel wares of
Sollngen have been famous since the
Middle ages.
From Essen there is trundled out,
month after month, a parade Of fin
ished engines, cars, and farm nipple
ments, to say nothing of tools, shaft
Ing, ship-frames, bridge steel, and
plates, that compete in the markets
OF the world from Java to Jerusalem.
One German writer, with character
1stic racial precision, figures out that
the volume Of raw and finished prod
ucts handled In tie Ruhr every work
Ing day would load a train Of cars
30 miles longl
What the Ruhr Is Like.
To grasp quickly just what the Ruhr
would look like If painted in on a
map, take your pencil and draw
horseshoe-shaped figure, starting north
east from Duisburg, on the Rhine; then
curve east and southeast, so that bort
mund stands at the toe of the shoe:
thence south at Hagen, southwest to
Barmen, and thence straight on TO
strike the Rhine again at a point north
of Cologne.
Then think Of the PENNSYLVANIA coal
nelds packed into this tiny area; pour
In the combined populations of Phil.
adelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland and ST
Louis. Then take a flock of the bip.
gest American steel mills and railroad |
SHOPS you can think of and set them
down along the Ruhr. Fill in the re-
Raining smaller gaps with paper. silk
10 cotton mills, glass factories fan
erles, aye, chemical and salt works
now put every man. woman and cbiId
from the cities named hard at work
uigging coal, firing boilers. RUNNING
iathes or rolling steel rails. and Won
VIII get graphic, accurate mental
picture OF what this roaring, rushing
Ruhr really Is.
geographically, the Ruhr district
Hes chiefly in the province of West.
phalia, bounded on the west nv tbo
Rhine. A small section of its oroo
however, including the city of Essen
iiows over into the Rhine province
it forms part of the prao,
sandy plain Of northwest GERMANY
merging with what biologists call the
Gulf Of Cologne" Its climate is mild.
~ oceanic, with the heaviest rainfall
In July.
Plunging suddenly into this teeming
Industrial field on the train ride from
cologne to Berlin, and passing through
dusseldorf, where $50 trains a dav
'un In and out, you are amazed at the 1
old procession Of busy towns, at the !
imost endless forest of chimneys, and 7
ne pail OF somber smoke that hangs :
yer the fiat. unattractive country T
In this small but highly mineralized
egion, where men have dug coal for h
W years, over 400 concerns now on o
rate mines or hold concessions for q
leir exploitation. And the Rubr IN