or basic) Cast Steel. Our troubles and complaints come from structural (Bessemer and Open-Hearth) steel. To know some of the causes for them, it is well occasionally to visit works where steel is made, to investigate modern methods of handling and treating it, and to talk with those whose lives have made them familiar with the ethics and practice of steel producers.

It is not easy to-day for the uninformed to get sound, homogeneous, inert structural steel—that is, metal that is free from pipes, seams, water-cracks, blow-holes, discolor- ation, etc., or excess of oxygen or nitrogen, or that is of fairly fine, even grain, elasticity, and hardness; and when it may be had few are willing to pay for it. It is probably wise to apply a cheap paint or a tar preparation to a surface  of  structural steel that is cov-