No less than fourteen different steamship lines are operated by the Steel Products Co., which through them handles its fleet. These lines are: Isthmian Steamship Line; New York and South America Line (to Chile and Peru); Pacific Coast Service (to Pacific coast, United States, and Canada); New York-Far East; New York-Rotterdam Service; New York-Mediterranean Service; Gulf-Rotterdam Service; Gulf-River Plate Service; Gulf-India Service; Gulf-Scandinavia Service; Pacific Coast, United Kingdom & Continent Service; Norton Line (New York to River Plate); United States and Brazil Steamship Line; Panama-Far East Line. The shipping of steel to certain points lacking a regular service often makes necessary the employment of expedients to reduce the attendant costs. For instance, prior to the opening of the Panama Canal, a fleet of six vessels was engaged in the trade with the east and west coasts of South America. These vessels sailing from the Atlantic seaboard made calls at various points in Argentina, Chile, Peru, and thence to British Columbia, where they found themselves empty and without opportunity for picking up a cargo for the return trip. The expense of the long journey in ballast round the Strait of Magellan home was prohibitive, so these vessels usually made trips to French or English ports, carrying general merchandise, making the shorter trip across the Atlantic to their home port under ballast, or with a cargo if it was possible to get one. Such a voyage would cover 35,000 to 40,000 miles and take about nine months. The opening of the Panama Canal, however, has changed the conditions that made this necessary. The shipping of steel to the less-known parts of the world involves difficulties never encountered in the home market. The men in charge of exports must be men of initiative, accustomed to overcoming handicaps as they arise and to deliver the goods without the aid of the efficient methods of civilization. On one occasion a special order for a number of boilers took one of the Corporation’s vessels to a harbor on the west coast of South America where the arrival of a steamer was a rarity, and facilities for landing cargo were conspicuous by their absence. The lack of hoists or any other method for lifting the boilers ashore was easily overcome, however. The crew of the ship was ordered to plug up the boilers at both ends and hoist them overboard, floating them on the waves to the sandy beach. But this novel method of delivery created a dearth of labor in the vicinity. The natives, at the sight of the huge steel cylinders leaping from the waves and rushing ashore on the tide, decided that they were strange and fearsome monsters of the deep and they fled in panic to the woods where they remained for several days before they could be induced to return and carry the boilers to their destination.