Many lobsters and clams are also obtained along the coast, and farther south are rich beds of oysters. In Chesapeake Bay more than one-third of all the oysters eaten in the world are grown, and most of these are shipped from the beautiful city of Baltimore, at the head of the bay. Thousands of men and women there are busy, day after day, opening the shells and taking out the oysters which are then put into tubs and cans for shipment.
In a Lumber Camp.
When the white men first came to the United States, almost all the land between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River was covered with forests. Most of these were cut down to make clearings for the settlers’ homes. Some of them, fortunately, were left. Among the largest forests still standing to-day are those near the Great Lakes, where the lumber-men work in much the same way as their Canadian brothers. When the snow is thick over the ground, they leave home with their teams of oxen and horses and go to the distant woods, where they build log-houses for themselves and stables for the animals. There they live during the cold months of the year. Sometimes they stop long enough in their work to go bear and deer hunting and so get fresh meat which makes a little change in their daily fare of bread, beans and salt-pork.
The logs are carried to the nearby streams on sledges which move easily over the ice and snow. When spring comes they are floated along the streams and lakes to the saw-mills where they are made into lumber.
Getting Coal.
Many of the children living in the Appalachian Mountains to-day have their homes near coal mines and their fathers are busy digging out the coal that brings warmth and comfort during the winter to so many people. In some places the rocks have been washed away, but in others the coal is still so far underground that the miners have to work day after day where the sunlight never shines.
Iron is also found in large quantities near the coal mines, and trains of freight cars carry both these minerals to cities not far away where they are used together in making steel.
Among the Rocky Mountains.
Great quantities of iron are found in the low mountains near Lake Superior, where the miners are constantly at work with the help of steam engines and powerful machines.
The richest copper mines of the United States are also found near the shores of Lake Superior. A pig, we are told, discovered the best one of all in a curious way. It had strayed from home and fallen into a pit, where it scratched and rooted in its struggle to get out. In doing this, it laid bare some copper, which was discovered by its master when he went to look for the missing pig.