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Show One twelfth of all the pig iron produced in the United States is wrested from the glistening ore by the furnaces of Pittsburgh and her immediate vicinity. In the matter of blast furnaces her record dates back to 1792 when the primitive structure erected by George Anschutz sent its smoke into the clear sky, now darkened by the warm breath of fifteen huge furnaces, capable of producing half a million tons of pig metal every year, from the ores that come from far and near. And to further prepare this metal - the first result of fire upon ore - there are in Pittsburgh thirty-five rolling mills, wherein eight hundred boiling or puddling furnaces are seething like miniature volcanoes in constant eruption, and where product is here being fashioned into one quarter of all the rolled iron made in the broad republic. Ascending into the realm of steel - that perfected, purified form reached through the crucial boiling and melting and hammerings - Pittsburgh claims with pardonable pride, sixteen enormous establishments devoted to making all manner of steel, including the finest grades of "tool" steel, until lately supplied by the English manufacturers. In this Pittsburgh excels, and makes two thirds of all the crucible steel produced in this country. G. P. Muller, in Harper's Magazine for December. |