| Show Where Iron Is King All AboutthoNowIionMhiesol the South and How They uio Bofiig Do oloj > cd Trmieli Throush the Coal andiron teldsrf North eon Alabama nmt it Look a the Enormous furnaces at J esienter A Visit to lie Red JlfMuatit flmes ometlnnf About the Iron Dttoitli of the United Males II tick Itoduce More eallh Than Oar Gold and Sill Atjfton lloji W I I le low > Lead IIe llcrd in Iron and Steel Gi eat Britain 10 HeHid A Look at the lake tipinor Mines and How They Are 11 orked Labor vs the Raw Material Million in Hair rinJJsA Story oj the Abe lltmtl etc Cnrl to 1111filkil Ly retort O Orpcnltr pctol Correspond e ace of the 2Em A WASIUNGTON December join 1896 WRITE today of I the wonderful del de-l velopmnl which I Is going on in Iron making in the I south I have visited the mines I I and furnaces In Alabama and I 1 elsewhere There I has been a revival of business since the election of McKinley and the Indications ore that there will be a steady increase in the output from now on I spent sometime at Birmingham which you know had 1 such a boom not long ago but which is I now doing business on a good financial basis Birmingham Is the biggest iron producer south ol Illits 1 I buig There are twenty six Iron lur I paces within thirty miles ol the town which have a daily output yOI almost I I 4 ooo tons ol pig iron They employ nearly 4000 men and pay wage of 150000 month They claim to make Iron cheaper than Anywhere else In the w orld and one ol the furnace companies shipped some ol Its product not long ago to London and sold it there at a profit CIO MONEY IN IRON The south Is I doing its business on a big broad scale There is an enormous mount of money invested and I visited the furnaces of one company which has a capital stock ol f Jl ooo ooo This Is the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company It 1m mines scattered throughout Tennessee and Alabama and I am told that its property Is worth the small European as much as some of kingdoms It has a vast area of coal beds and it Is now mining more than 170CO tons of coal a day It owns mountains of iron ore and last > ear It produced more than a hall million tons of pig Iron and more than three nod one half million tons of coal I visited its coke ovens at the town ol Bessemer south of Birmingham and was tell I that the ovens there togetherwith the others owned by the company makes almost 5 ooo tons of coke a day while out of Its f Alabama Iron mines alone are daily taken more than 6000 tons of ore This Is I perhaps the biggest company of I I the south but there are other large establishments and you may look lor an enormous Industrial development there within the next few years COAL ANDIRON HUGGING EACH OTHER The coal and iron of the south are I fairly hugging each other They he side by side I and when their marriage takes radl olr place in I the furnaces with I the 1 aid l of the fleecy bridal veil of limestone which is hi also 1 car near by they can produce industrial in-dustrial children III the shape 01 Iron and steel more cheaply than their kind I In any other portion of the world Next to Alabama the greatest iron mines of the United States ire along lake Superior The biggest coal beds arc in Pit as Ivanial more than a thousand miles away The limestone Is also far olT and the products have to travel hun irg oh dreds ol miles before they can come to ether Chicago makes a vast deal of iron It I I gets its ore from Lake Superior and its coal from Pennsylvania It is the same with Cleveland and Toledo but the freight rates on the great lakes are 60 low Hut we are able to shoe the seven league boots of our Industrial progress with iron Even at such great distances w e have brought the Iron and I coal together and have made ourselves I the greatest Iron manufacturers of the I worIlSpeAs little over ten years ago Great Britain produced ten times as I much pig iron as ue did We caught lip to her m 1890 and we now beat her I in the production ot both iron and steel I I have only the figures of 1892 before me In that year and every year since thehwe t led he a rIJeb these I respects In 1891 we made more than one fourth of all the iron and steel in the world and Germany and Great Britain lagged fir behind us on tile metallic road The the world produced 7oacko ° ton a of Iron and our share ce otnhw as over G oSocoo Ions Our I pig Iron product that year was worth more than all our gold and silver WILR < THE WORLDS IRON COMES IROM There Is no doubt that we are to furnish fur-nish Hit grealer par ol the iron for the world in the future We have bigger 1 ore beds Ihan any other country and our coal fields arc Practically Inexhaustible There Is I enough coal I in Alabama to do all the manufacturing of the United State for many years to come I was told al Bessemer that the available coal of Alabama alone illl could be put into a lump would make a solid chunk seventy miles long by sixty miles broad and ten feet thick Such a lump w auld it is estimated furnish thousand font of coal a day for more thin eleven thousand yea or a million tons a da > foriisjcars But Alabama has only ant Carsi omall8mounl of the treat Appalachian coal fields These fields end SOmewhere SOme-where In Alabama they run from there northward a distance it h 1 said of about t nine hundred nine miles and the are train thirty to one hundred and eighty mile wide They furnish about tub tli rds of all our bituminous coal output and we produce iou know about one third ol all I the coal ol the world In 1894 we mined 170 million Ions of coal while the whole world produced only 570 million tons The only country which beat us that year was Great Britain U e have thousands of square I miles of coal lands outside of the Am a lachlan fields and there are great undeveloped unde-veloped coal areas in the west I was told ol a great iron mountain which is to he opened by a railroad from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles during my stay in I a I Utah and there are large Iron deposit in Missouri Today the leading countries coun-tries of the world which produce Iron are Great Britain Germany France I Austria Hungary Russia IHgillm I and Sweden Spain mines a treat deal 01 iron ore but she Ships the mot of it to blltl rhlg j f d I England I i I heard ol big I undeveloped lion mines In China during my bray there and there are sonic good mines in Mexico mill Central Amend There is i one iron region in Cuba anti nu find small hail scattered throughout the t W est India Island The great bulk 01 I the product ol this hemisphere however how-ever comes from the United Stiles and as I hive said the indications arc that resources have not > ct been touched A GOOD IRON BUSINESS MEANS GOOD 1111 SIt S-It Is I said thata gocd iron business leans I good tunes anti that prosperity and Ihe reverse In the United Slate rise and all with the prices of steel rail If tills h so we are on the eve of good limes lor the iron Industrie ol the country are picking up The foundries of ittsburg I and Cleveland have taken Lack their men and the mines of iron rind coal are being worked along Lake Superior as well as in the south A report re-port was published last week slating that the Carnegie and Rockefeller iron and steel interests hue united and tint the new combination hR I a hundred I million dollars capital behind it Rockefeller Rocke-feller owns some of the biggest iron mines 01 Lake Superior The Carnegie olllpany have ilia I biggest steel works fit the world and this combination will result In an enormous production of iron and steel at the lowest cost The Lake Superior iron mines are wonderful I visited some 01 them a ear or so alto Many of them are localed from twelve to eighteen hundred feet above Lake Superior and from fifteen to one hundred hund-red miles from the u Her The iron Is forked f-orked down to a distance of atout fifteen hundred feel below ground The mining Is done with i the finest ol mirhl fiery > Llectricily i furnishes i I II lie light and I impressed air and steam work the lumps drills and hoists OUR MINES v S THOSE Ol LUROPE These Lake Superior mines show the wonderful advance we have made overtire over-tire old world in the use of machinery Many of the European mints are still worked in a very crude manner and it is nol long since the cars underground in the Belgiun l mines ehalled by wo men who cravv led along on Ihelt hand and knees being harnsstd up like mules Even now horses are used In some 01 tire European coal and otlltr mines Thee are mines where horses are born live and die underground They have stables under the earth and spend their lives hauling I minerals sn1 have a picture showing low horses are let down Into such mines They are sometimes swung up In a net ol straps a md thus lowered They paralyzed with fear during the descent and it takes them some time to recover alter they are in the mine Such horses are ned to haul the cars to the shafts whence they are raised by machinery All of our mines so far 111 I am able to learn are worked bj steam and the American miners receive better wages ban any others of their kind in the world THE OKU STEAMERS OF THE GREAT LAKES I went up the lakes on one ol the steel steamers which ale built eipechlly to carry iron ore down to Cleveland The ship was one of 3 503 ton and it carried noth ng but ore We traveled almost as fast as ou do on the ocean steamers crossing the Atlantic Arriving at the mines not far Irom Duluth the vessel was loaded within a couple of hours Everything was done by machi ncry and thousands ol Ions of iron ore were dropped into the steel holds of the ship with the use ol hardly an ounce ot human muscle No one who has not been to Lake Superior can appreciate the enorniousamountal capital rl invested the iron business there Millions ol dollars haNc been expended on shipping and recc Iving docks and on rillroid terminals Millions are Invested In steel steamships for carrying Iron and the mh laleback hips were built to carry iron and heat The ore deposits of Michi gan he III i he shape ol a treat w edge leaning against the slate of iscomln title those of Minnesota occur in two parallel range alone the oil er side of the lake More than half of the Iron ore of the United States comes Item Lake I Superior and in ISO more than 8000000 I lon 01 this ore was carried to luwces which w arc In average distance 01 600 miles assay VISIT TO AN ALABAMA IRON I MINI It is far different in tin south The furnaces at Bessemer are within a half a mile ol the mines from w hlch the iron is i taken out In company with one ol the bli erintendenls ol the Tnnessee coal andiron company I Visited them erode e-rode up to the mouth of the mine in a cirrlage winding our way lip I a littler little-r ig of mountains the sides of which were covered with terra colla stones I picked up one ol these stones and found it exceedingly heavy and was told that It was iron ore The trun lies right on tin surface ol the ground 1 They begin on the vein and work right down into the mountain taUnt out nothing but iron Deposits of this kind extend through the maintains of that region and it is a wonder that they were developed long ago I was told that iron mines were worked there during the Ute war and tliattliecontederaiegoveranitnt got a large part of its coal anti trOll front that region From time to time northern capitalists were asked to Invest in the mines but they would not beaeve the stories that were told them MR HEWITT WOULDNT BELIEVE IT One man who owned some of the most valuable Iron territory of Alabama called l upon Abram fa Hewitt who I IOU II know Jhasfr I made a fortune out ol iron and who has big iron interests today lie showed Hewitt the ore and told him it lay there in Alabama on the top of the ground and could be had lor the picking it up Hewitt replied that he had no money to invest at present and ho evidently did not believe the mans story Why said I he we people here ill New York look upon iron a so much gold I and you can hardly make me believe thai IOU people he lumps of told Ivinir I mound down scuth and that no one ha > et picked them up If your lory is i Hue advise > ou to tike several New York experts to the south and get them to swear to v hat they see beiorc vou try topUce t such Opety In New V ork r It was some time I alter this I before be-fore Ihe Alabama mining boom begin A great cicil of this was on bcfl but tic foundation It there and the Iron mines arc as valuable today as they II ere fen ears Ago They arc now all owned by big corporations and they are being developed alter the best business principle i The mine which we entered was worked with comlleed air drills The cal1 were hauled up and clown mi Inclined railway by steam and hundreds ol sooty laborers with cindlesin 1 their hats w < re nt work The vein of qr < that I saw ranged in wIdth Irom eight to twenty lourfeet It fin I grand sandwich of iron ore between walls of slate anti rock it dips down Into the ground titan tit-an tingle of about thirty five degrees SOME OK TIM DANCERS OF MINING I could hear the boom booml hooml of the blasting powder as I went through the mine At times the air shook and quivered with the concussion and our iindlca I were biovn out Dynamite I used almost altoccther in iron mining md the danger Is very great it it tI is not carefully handled 1 rf I very now and II lien I terrible accidents occur in the mines Men are torn to pieces the walls fall in and there Is I great loss ol life The lIIiners I saw III Alabama were lIegro They fire not as carelul as the willtrs and their wages arc less thin the men al II ork in the mines of i f the Lake 1 Superior region MAKIO 110 IRON Leaving the mine I next went to one of the treat furnaces at the foot of Red mountain where the ore is turned Into pig iron Iron IOU know never occurs pure in a state of nature The ore of the red mountain which is I used at I the Bessemer furnaces contains ollly about 43 per cent ol iron and the super intendent told me that the purest ironstone iron-stone found anywhere contains only 70 per cent The rest Is i made up 01 rock and other minerals and it is necessary to I separate the iron before I it can be used for manufactures This process is known as making pig Iron The iron is mixed I with limestone and coke in great furnaces naccs which are I judge as Inch as a six story house The furnace l are filled with Alternate layers of coke limestone and iron It lakes an enormous blast to furnish enough licit for such furnace and the blast is created by immense I engines en-gines which il force the air first through hl alw are perhaps I the biggest stoves ol tol the world They are immense tubes many feet high and as big around as the city gas lank They are lined with firebrick and are heated by the gas which comes Irolll ithc furnaces I he air Is mad to pass through Ihse ellormou sieves before It goes to the blast and it produces a hen so intense that the iron and steel machinery of Ihe furnace would not last a minute were not every bit of u I enveloped in water All ol Ihe pipes are encesed in other pipes wlilc1 are kept lull I of < old floum water ind this water is I forced about the outside ol the furnace fur-nace whenever smelting is going on The heat h i so great that the iron is melted in i very short time It is drawn ofT from each lurnace twice a day A KIVtK OF GOLD It flow out at the loot In a little river of gold 1 he stream looks like molten gold alloyed with copper until it tgetsa distance perhaps twenty feet away film the furnace Here it IS divided Into in-to two stream The iron flows one way and the slag or refuse hlclI has formed scum amllloal on i the top is carried off In another The iron is I now 01 a yellow gold color It seems to have lost its reddish lint It runs oil in a golden stream into a bed ol sand m which little holes have been cut or molded so that it looks lorall the world like a garden patch ready for planting These holes are of just the size and shape of what is knows is an iron pig They are about as big around as the upper arm of a goodsized man and about three feet long The yellow stream finds its way in through them and soon the garden is lull I of these bright yellow pigs which turn to a copper tint as they cool and then change to the gray ot cold pig iron As the metal Is cooling the heat wives dance over the garden patch 01 hot iron and you have to hold ycur hat belore > our face to keep from being scorched After the pigs are cooled they are piled up ready to be shipped to different parts of the Unite I States for use m manufacturing manu-facturing The slag goes to waste It run oil Into a great iron pot fastened oil car ivheels md is wheeled on n railroad rail-road track some distance away atilt emptied out upon the slag heal There are mountains 01 such slag near every great furnace and the IIIventlon has jet lohe made which will turn it to any other use than that ol ballasting railroads rail-roads WE LEAD Till WORLD We lead the world not only in the production of iron but also in the makIng mak-Ing ol pig Iron We made 10 ooo coo tons In t892 which wa an Increase 01 more than flaw per cent over the product pro-duct of 1865 Since that time we have increased our steel rroduc 360 times And we are now in11king enough steele steel-e ery year to give eery man woman and child In the United btatcr jo pounds mil hae sonic to spare Sonic of our pig iron which was lately sent to nAn n-An I I am told was bold for less than f 7 a ton U e made pig iron at the tillle of the revolution which was worth fo a lon and Ie are making stelno tot is said almost as cheaply is a good class of Iron MILLIONS IN IT It is wonderlul how iron increase in value after It is I turned into machinery or articles of use by the people You get sonic Idea of what labor Is I worth when > ou think of it It ls estimated by Carroll 1 > Wright of the labor bureau for instance I tint seven five cents worth of common iron ore when turned into bar iron is I orth 5 II you make it into horse shoes It is i worth io oril into table knives fifto Seventy five cents worth of ore manufactured into needles is worth 6800 and when made Into buttons mOle than 39 ooo If the iron is converted into watch springs Its value Is almost In limes as great and when turned Into hair springs your seven hvc cents worth of rock and stone will sell lor the enormous sum off of-f ooooo The difference between 75 cents and 1 < ioo ooo is the value paid lor labor alone bo you see that alter all the real wealth ol a country lies In the muscles and brains of its people If we could turn all of our iron ore into hairsprings hair-springs and could find customers for them we ould be so rich thane could buy the hole world and take flyers in all the speculative property on the sun moon and tars and still have money to burn TITK Al ae CA1114Z |
