Evening star., 1927-12-14
FIRES OF INDUSTRY
GUIDE MAIL FLYERS
Flaming Stacks of Steel Mills
Light Way for Planes
at Night.

Correspondence OF the Associated Press.
NEW YORK.-The fires of industry
light the way across half continent
for the night air mail.
If every aerial beacon between New
York and Chicago were turned out to-
night the pilots of the dark still could
find their way above the flaming
stacks of PENNSYLVANIA steel mills,
across the coal and oil fields, along
Lake Erie's shore and over Indiana to
the gigantic crescent which is Chicago
from the air by night.
On an Industrial map of the United
States such towns as Allentown, Sha-
mokin, Brookville and South Bend are
obscure and lifeleSS dots, 1dentlneu
more or less vaguely with steel or coal
or oil or commerce.
But to the night air mail pilot these
communities and many more become
landmarks i'm the darkness, each re-
flecting a character of its own even 10
the light il diffuses into the heavens.
Wesley l.. Smith. senior plot OIL the
New York -Clevela nd leg of the air
mail service under Federal operation.
tells how industry hlaZes the trail for
the nigh flyers who take off from
New York after dusk 10 lay on Chi
cago breakfast tables letters mailed
the night before a thousand miles
away.
Watch for Steel Furnaces.
"The first thing we look for. flying
at night, after leaving New York ana
its brightly lighted environs behind is
the steel country" Smith says. THE
furnaces of Allentown and Bethlehem
in eastern Pennsylvania are Sufused
in a glow of reddish light that makes
them easy TO identify.
From them we jump 10 the hard
coal region, which lies in vast arc
from HaZleton through Shenandoah to
Shamokin in east central Pennsyl'
vania. Galleries and towns in abun-
dance, lighted up all night, give the
region the appeara nee of an immense
half moon"
Central Pennsylvania is a black
area, for, although il has many INDUS
tries. few of them are in operation
through the night.
But beyond Bellefonte, Pa, we
come to more lights, scattered and
irregular, but definite enough to look
from the sky like section of the
milky wav fallen down TO earth. These
are the lights of the soft coal mines,
and they stretch straight from Snow
Shoe TO Du Bois, Pa
Now the plane is over the oil coun-
try. and here are lights of still another
sort. Population is more scant and
lights are even more scattered, Tor
there are no large cities. But from
Brookville to Kennerdell. Pa, the oil
y. ellis show I'D from the night sky, for
almost every one has an open gas
fame which shines like torch"
Ohio Mills Guide Flyers.
Just across the Pennsylvania Ohio
line the night pilot comes upon the
line of light which stretches from
Pittsburgh northwest through Youngs-
town. Ohio, TO Cleveland.
Mills, ovens and blast furnaces, all
aglow. make it a simple task TO md
this line and to follow it into Cleve-
land
Lake Erie by night, like others of
the great lakes. is identified from the
sky as huge pool of blackness, Smith
relates.
but the flyer sees below him the
rim of light along the shore, with
scattered dots of light to the south,
and westward from Cleveland he fol-
lows this line along the edge of the
lake. Now there are more cities. TO"
Jedo appears to the north as Lake Erie
is left behind, and the plane noses
westward until South Bend appears,
then Gary. with more steel mills and
blast furnaces.
"Chicago and it's metropolitan area,
banked around the southwestern shore
of Lake Michigan, look from the air
at night like great crescent. Inc
pilot takes the outer edge of the cres-
cent. follows it around to the western
rim and comes down at the air mail
field in Maywood-with dawn stu
somewhere behind him.