The Challis messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1912-current, 1923-01-17
Electric Welding in Essen.

prepared by the National Geographic 81
ciety. Washing, on. D. CO.
Once more the Ruhr valley, Gel
many's beehive Of Industry, has com
to the fore in world interest, with til
suggestion that France may seize thi
region to force the payment of repairs
lions.
Merely as river, this Ruhr, barrel
$50 miles long, is not important. Dow
the Rhine, below where Caesar bridges
1t at Andernach, below where Yanke
doughbUys now wash their shirts il
its green flood and British Tommie
play at soccer above the bones of Dish
ops, the nall crooked stream flows II
from the east. But it flows through
and lends IT'S name to tiny region
not equalet anywhere for intensity O.
industry and potential political impor
lance.
Viewed In the light of events since
the war, it seems safe to predict tina
the course Of life In Europe for the
next generation may depend on wha
is happening now along this short
CIOOhtu, Dut DuSy SlItdlu.
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 it is, a mere speck on the
map 1t produces In normal times over
1OOO0O,000 tons of coal year; it
mines much of the iron ore it's many
mills consume, and the steel wares of
Solingen have been famous since the
Middle ages.
From Essen there is trundled out,
month after month, parade Of fin
ished engines, cars, and farm imple-
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
istic racial precision, figures out that
the volume OF raw and finished prod
ing day would load train of cars
30 miles long!
What the Ruhr Is Like.
To grasp quickly just what the Ruhr
would look like If painted in on
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 point north
of Cologne.
Then think of the Pennsylvania coal
fields packed into this tiny area pour
In the combined populations of Phil
adelphia, Baltimore. Cleveland and st.
Louis. Then take flock of the big
gest American steel mills and railroad
shops you can think of and set them
down along the Ruhr. Fill in the re-
smaller gaps with paper, silk
md cotton mills, glass factories, tan
neries. dye, chemical and salt works.
Now put every man, woman and child
from the cities named hard at work
digging coal, firing boilers, running
athes or rolling steel rails. and you
will get a graphic, accurate mental
picture Of what this roaring. rushing
I,Lhr really is.
Geographically. the Ruhr district |
les chiefly in the province of West |!
)halia, bounded on the west by the |
Rhine. A small section of its area. |
however, including the city of Essen,
lows over into the Rhine province. |
Physically. 1t forms part of the great |
sandy plain of northwest Germany,
merging with what biologists call the
Gulf of Cologne" It's climate is mild
y oceanic, with the heaviest rainfall
n July.
Plunslng suddenly into this teeming
Industrial field on the train ride from
Cologne to Berlin, and passing through
where $50 trains day
,uff in and out, you are amazed at the
'olid procession of busy towns, at the
Utmost endless forest of chimneys. and
he pail of somber smoke that hangs
'yer the fiat. unattractive country.
In this small but highly mineralized
egion, where men have dug coal for
700 years. over 400 concerns now OBJ
rate mines or hold concessions for
heir exploitation And the Ruhr In