Manufacturing Regions of the United States 255

men, of all nationalities, work at the great blast furnaces where iron ore is smelted to make pig
mills where the steel is rolled out into rods and plates for further use in industry.

the automobile began to be important, and the industry naturally
came to have a center. Detroit was no better adapted to be such a
center than several other cities; but when once it had become the
automobile city, it grew so fast that it is more than twice as large as
Milwaukee, and is one of the world’s greatest cities.
In the southern part of the middle-western manufacturing district,
Cincinnati is the largest of a group of cities which includes Indianapois,
 Columbus, and Dayton. These cities lie some distance from the
ron-ore route of the Great Lakes, but are supplied with cheap coal
either by way of the Ohio River or from local coal fields. Consequently
they do not engage largely in the manufacture of the heavier kinds of
ron goods, such as steel rails and steel cars, but specialize in articles
ike typewriters, cash registers, and automobile ignition apparatus,
articles in which the amount of iron is small in proportion to the work
put into the product. Slaughtering, meat packing, and the accompanying
 occupations, such as soap making, are also important, because
many animals are raised on the surrounding farms; but the bulk of
the animals produced farther west go to Chicago and St. Louis.

Manufacturing in the Northeastern Section
outside of the Three Districts
There is a large part of the northeastern section of the United
States that is in marked contrast to the area of concentrated manufacturing.

Where manufacturing is extensive and simple. In the North Atlantic
 district, the Central New York district, and the Middle West
district, manufacturing is infensive,; that is, the region is well covered
with manufacturing cities. Many of them are large, and their industrial
 plants are on a great scale. The type of manufacturing is also