In the foreground, a variety of gables, and then the irregular roof, far beyond, that I knew must be the blooming-mill, because of the interesting yard with the muscular cranes, tossing about bars and shapes and sheets of steel. An immense system of railways everywhere, running down as far as the river bank, where were piles of cinder, and a trainload of ladles moving there to dump. A half-mile away another ironclad cluster of buildings, the tube mill, the nail mill, and the rest, with convenient rails running up to them. I turned around. Near by, slightly beyond the foot of the skips, was that impressive hill of red dust, the ore pile. Iron ore was being taken away for the skips with one of those spider-like mechanisms that combine crane, derrick, and steam-shovel. It was built hugely, two uprights forty or fifty feet high, at a distance, I estimate, of a hundred yards, with their bases secured to railway cars. A crossbeam joined them, which was itself a monorail, along which a man-carrying car ran. From that car dropped chains, attaching themselves at the bottom to the familiar automatic shovel or scoop. First the whole arrangement moved--the uprights, the crosspiece, and the monorail car--very slowly over the whole hill of ore, to a good spot for digging. Then the monorail car sped to the chosen position, and the shovel fell rapidly into the ore. With a mouthful secure, the chains lifted a little, enough to clear the remaining ore, and the car ran its mouthful to the hill's edge, to dump into special gondolas on railroad tracks. The whole gigantic ore-hill was within easy reach of a single instrument. "Ought to last a while," I said. "Will be gone in a month," he returned. We went down the ladder-steps, and stopped near one of the furnaces. I rather hoped the stove-gang boss would talk. He did. "Ever work blast-furnace before?" he began. "No," I said; "I have worked on the open-hearth furnaces a little. But before that I spent about two years in the army." "Me in Austrian army," he said musingly, "fifteen year ago. Sergeant artillery." I thought about that, and it occurred to me that he retained something of the artillery sergeant still, necessarily adapted a little to the exigencies of American blast-stoves. I found he knew about ordnance, and boasted of Budapest cannon-makers. "How do you like this country?" I asked. "America, all right," he said. "Good country?" I pushed him a little. "Mak' money America," he explained; "no good live. Old country fine place live." We developed that a little. We discussed cities. He asked me about London and Paris, and other European cities. Which did I like best, cities over there or American cities? I said American cities. He asked what was the difference. I thought a minute, comparing New York and London. European cities did not have the impressive forty-story edifices of American, and looked puny with four or five.