Show 0 W WWW WW 0 po Q 0 Q 4 i rn h u r N. N i 44 s- s s' s 1 r ar Electric Welding in n Esson Essen I Prepared by the National Geographic Society Society So So- D D D. C C. Once more the Ruin Ruhr valley Germanys Germany's Germanys Germany's Ger Ger- many's s beehive e of Industry has come conic cometo cometo to th the fore In world Interest with the suggestion that France Francc may JUay seize this region to force the payment of or reparations Merely as a river this Ruhr barely miles long Is s not Important Down the Rhine below where Caesar bridged It at Andernach below where Yankee doughboys s 's now wash wah their shirts In Its green flood and British Tou Tommies rules pla play at nt soccer above the bones of bishops bishops bishops bish bish- ops the small crooked stream flows s in from the east But It flows through and lends Its name to a n tiny region not hot equaled anywhere for intensity of ot Industry and potential political tance Viewed In the time the light of events since the war It seems safe to predict that the course of life in Europe for the next generation may ma- depend on what Is happening now now- along this short crooked but bus busy stream The he Ruhr as this famous region is commonly called Is not n a political subdivision subdivision sub sub- division Islon of Germany German It is merely an Industrial district smaller In area than Rhode thode Island but crowded crowdell with mines and factories from end to end and settled in spots with 1800 people to the square mile Tiny as it Is a mere speck on the snap map it it produces in hr normal normol times over tons of coal n a year jear ear it mines much of the Iron ore its many mills consume and the the steel wares of r Solingen Solln en have been famous since the Middle 1 ages From Essen there is trundled out month mouth after month a a parade of finished fin fill Ishell engines cars and farm implements mple- mple ments to sa say say- nothing of tools shaft shaft- hug ing ship ship frames bridge steel ant and plates that compete in hu the markets of the world from front Java to Jerusalem One German writer with characteristic character character- racial precision figures out that the volume of raw and finished products products products prod prod- handled in the Ruhr ever every every- workIng working work- work Ing lag da day would load a train of cars 30 miles long What hat the Ruhr Is Like To grasp quickly just what the Ruhr would look like If f painted lu to on a map take tale your om pencil and mal draw a n shaped figure starting northeast northeast northeast north north- east from Duisburg burg on the time Rhine then curve CUl east Hill and southeast so that Dortmund Dort- Dort mund stands at the toe o of the shoe thence south nt at Hagen southwest to Barmen and thence straight on to strike the Rhine I. I a again at a point north of Cologne Then think of time the P Pennsylvania coal coalfields coalfields coalfields fields packed Into this tin tiny area pour In the combined populations of Philadelphia Phil Phil- Philadelphia adell adelphia hla Baltimore Cleveland elaml and nd St. St Louis Louts Then ta take a n flock of the time biggest biggest big big- gest American steel mills and railroad shops you ou can think of aril and set tI t em down along the Ruhr Fill Fitl In the remaining re te smaller lIer gap all m with paper silk sill and cotton mills glass Ius factories tanneries tan tan- nodes dye de chemical tal and 1111 salt works Now put every every- man woman oman and amid child from the cities named hard halll at work digging coal firing boilers running lathes or rolling steel rails raUs and amI you OU will ill get a graphic accurate mental picture of oC what this roaring rushing Ruhr really really- is Geographically the time Ruhr blur district I lies chiefly chiefly- in the province of West est Westphalia phalla phalia bounded on the west b by the time Rhine A small section of Its area however ho Including the tine city cHr of Essen flows over o into the Rhine thIne province ince Ph Physically It forms a part of oC the great sandy plain of northwest Germany mel merging ing with what geologists call cull the Gulf of or Cologne Its climate Is mildly mildly mildly mild mild- ly oceanic with the heaviest lest rainfall In Jul July Plunging suddenly Into this leemin teeming h industrial field on the train ride from Cologne Colone to Berlin erlln and passing through Dusseldorf where l O trains a n day puff purr In and out you ou are amazed at the solid procession of bus busy towns to It nt at t th the almost endless forest fOIest of chim chimneys e and the pall of or somber smoke that hangs hang over the flat fiat unattractive e country In this small but highly mineralized mineralized region where men mell have ha dug coal for fm COO GOO years yem'S over concerns now op op- erate mines or hold concessions conces for their e tau And the th Ruhr In in- in D- D rilon Is even larger than the mining r frea for It overflows to the southwest and had Includes the famous factory towns t of or ruen BI Elberfeld and Solingen Essen's Sudden Rise Boom towns of mushroom growth are not peculiar to America as ns the startling rise of or Essen proves Though founded away back in the Ninth cen cen- century century tur tury It slumbered along for hundreds of years ears an on obscure unimportant ham ham- let Even ns os late as 1850 1350 It had hind hardly hard l ly more mOle than people Then the Krupp the boom boom the rise of the greatest machine shop the time world has ever seen seeD struck It and today today- the city houses half a million Set In lu the heart of the coal fields crowded with endless Industrial plants whose tall chimneys s 's belch eternal smoke ant and fumes tunes the great workshop fairly throbs with power and amid energy The roar and rattle of ceaseless wheels and the lie din llin of giant hammers pound pounding ing lag on OD n etal seem to keep the lie whole town Here ever every form of Iron and steel article Is made from bo boys boys' s skates t tn giant marine engine shafts Curious Curiously I ly enough even enn some of the smoke or the time fumes from flom the smokestacks Is caught and converted Into a n gas that furnishes more power to run the mills More lore than a hundred years ears ago ngo the first Krupp set up his small crude shop and began to make maIm by hand hant the tools the drills Mills and chisels used b by tanners blacksmiths and carpenters along the Ruhr and the Rhine lie He al also also also al- al so made dies for use in hr the mint of the government go Within 30 years ears due to the thel old ambition for expansion Krupp tools were known and used as asfar asfar far awa away as Greece and India Then Then came came the great era of or mass moss production In lu team steam engines hammers steel tires for fot railway cars steel cast teel shafts for river ri and ocean steamers and finally that ast astonishing output of guns and armor plate which brought the militaristic militarise nations of the world to buy buy- buyat bu at Essen The dally daily roar mar of artillery at the proving grounds where each new gun was tested added to the din of whistles rushing trains and rattling gears gentS made war pre Ruhr probably the noisiest place on earth It Is noisy enough now but the time great guns gums are aro silent Krupp makes them no more The big lathes that once made guns for er c every from Chile to China now turn out shafting for marine and other engines Box cars for Belgium car Of eels for South America and whole holc train line systems for the Dutch East Indies were Mere some of the lie orders being filled flUell a f few fen w months month ago v Everybody Is a Worker habitat habitat habitat This Ruhr Is pre eminently the time tat of labor ever Everybody bod works and nearly everybody e works with his hands An army armr of or chemists engineers find technical men Is employed ell of course but but they ther form merely a small element of the grimy grim dust dusty sweaty population population population tion that keeps keels the coal moving mo the furnaces roaring and the big lathes turning The population variously estimated at and one half to four millions mull mil II lions lious OilS Is not easy to determine becam because because be be- cause cam thousands come and amid go as the tho tide of or trade rises ant and falls and no nowhere nowhere nowhere where Is the world wide house shortage shortage short short- age more snore keenly felt elt than In this densely populated area aren About many of oC the mines time the government go has set setup setup setup up temporary barracks where thousands thousands thou thou- sands of miners are housed In the more mOIe picturesque and less les crowded crowdell spots of the Ruhr the overlords overlords over over- lords of Industry have hu reared their theli villas and spacious homes but a distinctive dis distinctive dis- dis e leisure class an Idle rich like the groups S conspicuous In Ch berg Dresden or Wiesbaden is n nt t found Hundreds are here who have retired rethell but hut the they are arc the lie aged and pensioned workmen dozing comfortably comfort comfort- ably 1113 In ha the clean cozy cozy- colonies built for them in cities like Essen A tiny tiny- spook speck on lit the the map is this I heated smoking Ruhr but big like Uke a tinder cinder In is t the he worlds world's eye u eye u spot I that Caesar knew a high spit In a 11 r region J n old I In n history tory |