Practical English Composition: Book II | Page 9

$180,062,486, according to the United States Geological Survey, its prominence being due to its great wealth in copper and iron. Ranking second only to Minnesota in the production of iron ore, it is third in the production of copper, being exceeded only by Arizona and Montana. It also stands first in the production of salt, bromine, calcium chloride, graphite, and sand lime brick.
In 1911 Michigan's production of iron ore was 8,945,103 long tons, valued at $23,810,710, and in 1912 it increased to 12,717,468 long tons, valued at $28,003,163.
The production of copper in Michigan, the value of which in the last two years has exceeded that of the output of iron ore, amounted in 1912 to 218,138,408?pounds, valued at $135,992,837, a decrease in quantity, but an increase in value of over $8,000,000.
The mining of copper in Michigan is of prehistoric origin, the metal having been used by the North American Indians before the advent of the white man. The records since 1810, or for a little more than 100?years, show that the total production of copper in Michigan from that date to the close of 1912 has amounted to over 5,200,000,000?pounds, which is about 30?per?cent of the total output of the United States.
III.?Oral Composition
All three of these items are evidently condensations of longer articles. The writers have boiled down a vast amount of material into the form in which it here appears. The student will find similar material in abundance in The Literary Digest, in The Scientific American, in The National Geographical Magazine, in many government reports, and in almost any daily newspaper. In preparing for this exercise he should observe the following steps:
1. Find his material.
2. Boil it down, to the size desired, which is a most useful exercise of the judgment.
3. Make a careful framework, in doing which the models will be useful.
4. Get the whole so well in mind that he can present it fluently. Hesitation should not be tolerated.
IV.?Suggested Time Schedule
Monday--Dictation. Tuesday--Notes and Queries. Wednesday--Oral Composition. Thursday--Written Composition. Friday--Public Speaking.
V.?Notes, Queries, and Exercises.
1. Write an appropriate heading for each item.
2. Point out the "Four W's" in each.
3. Tell whether each sentence is simple, compound, or complex.
4. Explain the syntax of the nouns in Model?I, the pronouns in II, the verbs in III.
5. Explain the location of St. Louis, Halifax, Nova Scotia, the Bay of Fundy, Washington, Michigan, Minnesota, Arizona, and Montana.
6. Where is the copper country of Michigan? The salt, bromine, calcium, chloride, graphite, and brick regions?
7. Explain the etymological signification of "demonstration," "extraordinary," "accumulated," "Nova Scotia," "annually," "geological," "Arizona," "Montana," "advent."
8. How many words does Model?I contain? II? III?
9. Discover and write out the framework of each model.
10. Find one subject on which you could make an item like Model I. Do the same for II and III.
VI.?Written Composition
Remember that you are writing for the compositor. Every letter must be right. If you do a good piece of work it is altogether probable that your composition will get into one of the local papers.
VII.?Suggested Reading
Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Pudd'nhead Wilson, or Roughing It.
VIII.?Memorize
GOETHALS, THE PROPHET ENGINEER
A man went down to Panama Where many a man had died To slit the sliding mountains And lift the eternal tide: A man stood up in Panama, And the mountains stood aside.
For a poet wrought in Panama With a continent for his theme, And he wrote with flood and fire To forge a planet's dream, And the derricks rang his dithyrambs And his stanzas roared in steam.
Where old Balboa bent his gaze He leads the liners through, And the Horn that tossed Magellan Bellows a far halloo, For where the navies never sailed Steamed Goethals and his crew;
So nevermore the tropic routes Need poleward warp and veer, But on through the Gates of Goethals The steady keels shall steer, Where the tribes of man are led toward peace By the prophet-engineer. PERCY MACKAYE.[1]
[1] "He [Goethals] received last week three medals--one at Washington, at the hands of President Wilson, from the National Geographical Society; another in New York, at the hands of Dr. John H. Finley, head of the New York State Educational System, from the Civic Forum; and a third, also in New York, at the hands of Hamilton W. Mabie, from the National Institute of Social Sciences. At the presentation of the Civic Forum medal, a poem written for the occasion was read by its author, Mr. Percy MacKaye." (The Outlook. March?14, 1914.) This poem is here quoted, by permission, from Mr. MacKaye's volume, The Present Hour. Published by The Macmillan Company, New York.

CHAPTER?VI
HUMOROUS ITEMS
"To laugh, if but for an instant only, has never been granted to man before the fortieth day from his birth."--PLINY.
I.?Introduction
Laughter, when it hurts nobody, is wholesome. It is the handmaid of happiness. It enriches life. Pleasant but not silly humor and wit