American steel makers also had scrap heaps whose size astounded the foreign observers; they never hesitated to discard the most expensive plants if by so doing they could reduce the cost of steel rails by a dollar a ton.

Machinery for steel making had a more extensive development in this country than in England or Germany.

Mr.Carnegie also enjoyed the advantages of a high protective tariff, though about 1900 he discovered that his extremely healthy infant no longer demanded this form of coddling.

But probably the Carnegie Company's greatest achievement was the abolition of the middleman.

In a few years it assembled all the essential elements of steel making in its own hands.