PENNSYLVANIA: Death at Donora

Fog settled down on the grimy industrial towns of Pennsylvania's Monongahela Valley one day last week, blurred the bleak outlines of steel mills and foundries, and softened the glare of great furnaces. At sooty Donora (pop. 13,500), it was particularly heavy; the hills stand close and no breath of breeze had reached its streets. The haze thickened as locomotives and the high stacks of U.S. Steel's huge Donora Zinc Works sent fumes into the still air. But nobody paid much attention to the smoke-laden mist. The zinc plant had been operating for...