In December, 1902, an important deal for the absorption of the Union Steel Co. was consummated. This company was a merger, effected only a month or so previous to its absorption by the Steel Corporation, of the Union Steel Co., a $1,000,000 concern owning a large plant for the manufacture of wire rods, wire, and nails at Donora, Pa., and the Sharon Steel Co., a $6,000,000 company making a similar line of products and located at Sharon, Pa. The merged company had an authorized capitalization of $50,000,000 and a capacity of 750,000 tons of pig iron and 850,000 tons of ingots yearly. The purchase was carried out on the following basis: The Steel Corporation guaranteed an issue of bonds on the Union-Sharon properties amounting to $45,000,000, of which $29,113,500 were issued to pay for the properties, $8,512,500 were purchased by the interests controlling the properties, $3,500,000 were reserved to retire bonds outstanding on the property of the Sharon company, and the balance was reserved to provide for future construction and improvements. The actual cost to the Corporation was fixed at $30,860,501, as follows: bonds guaranteed and issued, $29,113,500; underlying bonds assumed, $3,591,000; cash $497,990; total $33,202,490; less liquid assets taken over with the properties, $2,341,989; net cost, $30,860,501. [Illustration: Down in a Coal Mine] By this transaction the Corporation acquired five blast and twenty-four open-hearth furnaces, two blooming and slabbing mills, four rod mills, two wire and nail mills, one skelp works, one tube works, one plate mill, one tin plate plant, one sheet plant, a by-product coke plant of 212 ovens, two modern ore steamers, 4,750 acres of coking coal, 1,524 acres of steam coal, and the ownership of two mines and leases on another two in the Mesaba Range with an estimated ore deposit of 40,000,000 tons. [Illustration: Open Pit Mining--Canisteo Mine]