When the first ships of the season come up from the South in April or May nearly a million and a half tons of ore are awaiting them in the docks of the ore-shipping ports. There are twenty-six of these ore docks, one of which, at Duluth, has a storage capacity of ninety-six thousand tons. From a distance these docks look like great trestles, from fifty to one hundred feet above the water, some of them running for nearly half a mile out into the lake. Out upon these docks run the cars from the mines. From these cars the ore is dropped into huge pockets, from which run downward long chutes, or spouts. A ten-thousand-ton carrier runs alongside. Her hatches are opened. Into each hatch runs a chute. The chute “doors” are opened, and with a dull, rumbling, rushing sound the ore pours down by force of gravity from the huge pockets above. At dock No. 4, Duluth, 9277 tons were put aboard the steamer _E. J. Earling_ in seventy minutes, being at the rate of 7988 tons an hour. The rapidity with which Lake transportation is carried on is shown in the fact that upon this occasion the _Earling_ was in port only two hours and fifteen minutes before she began her thousand-mile return trip eastward. And now comes the last important phase. One viewing the continuous activity at the mines, the building up of cities on the ranges, and the tremendous interests represented in the great shipping ports may forget that this is but one end of the gigantic industry which makes the United States the steel-maker for the world. At the other end of the fresh-water highways is seen the other half of the picture. Down into Erie come the ships from the North. A few of them go to Chicago, but only a few. Out of a total movement of thirty-seven million tons, in 1906, thirty-two million tons were received at Lake Erie ports. There are eleven of these “receiving ports”--Toledo, Sandusky, Huron, Lorain, Cleveland, Fairport, Ashtabula, Conneaut, Erie, Buffalo, and Tonawanda. [Illustration: One of the Huge Open Pits of the Mesaba Range.]