Attention was turned to the shipping of ore to furnaces better located as regards coke supply and market. It was possible to make this a profitable undertaking only through cheap ore handling and transportation. So, to-day, the ore which is better adapted than the other raw materials for handling by labor-saving devices and transporting without deterioration, is taken to the coke and limestone, and to the market for the product. While the weight of coke used is but half that of the ore smelted, its greater bulk, loss by breakage when handled in quantities, and deterioration upon exposure preclude its manipulation in the way which would be necessary to get it to the ore. [Illustration: VIEW OF HULL-RUST MINE, NEAR HIBBING, MINN. ] The marvelous development of this territory into the greatest ore producer of the world, including the hauling of the first small shipment on mule back, the building of the plank and then the “strap” railroad with grades so steep that the small trucks often ran over and killed the mules, the building of the steam railroad, the successive building and enlarging of canal locks at Sault Sainte Marie connecting for use of ever larger and larger ore boats the waters of Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, and the growth of ore boat fleets to such size that during the shipping season scarcely ever is one boat out of sight of another over the entire 800 mile journey from Duluth to the furnaces along Lake Michigan and Lake Erie, is within the memory of men still living. Marquette was the shipping point during the earlier days and the history of this and adjacent regions during the latter half of last century vies in pioneering flavor with the tales of our early western frontiers, and with the more recent Yukon mining camps. [Illustration: THE ROUTES BY WHICH LAKE SUPERIOR ORES GO TO THE FURNACES ] The first two mines, the Jackson and the Marquette, have come to be particularly well known historically. The development of these and other ranges in northern Michigan and Minnesota, particularly the Menominee, Gogebic, Vermillion, etc., and, since 1890, the Mesaba and Cuyuna, have brought about revolutions in ore digging, handling and transportation, which followed each other with extreme rapidity. The ore carrying boats, for instance, may almost be said to have jumped from a length of three hundred to six hundred feet, and the Sault Sainte Marie canal locks were several times almost immediately outgrown, though rebuilt again and again, each time so much larger than before that they were deemed impossible to be outgrown. [Illustration: LOADING ORE AT AN OPEN PIT MINE ] [Illustration: SHOWING OTHER TYPICAL ORE BODIES, SHAFT MINED ]