OCR Text |
Show THE CEMENT INDUSTRY. - Tho following statement rewarding conditions in the American Portland cement Industry during the year 1908 has been prepared by Edwin C. Eckel. Detailed figures aro not yet obtainable, obtain-able, but an estimate based on the Information In-formation at hand Indicates that tho production of Portland cement In tho United States was somewhat less than 40,000,000 barrels. This compares as follows with the output of recent years stated in barrels: 1905 35,246,812 1906 .... 46.463,421 1907 48.7S5.390 I 1908 WW. 40,000,000 The falling off of the output of 1907 was heavy, and is particularly notablo because it Is the first decrease shown in .my year by the American cement industry. The decrease was not uniformly uni-formly distributed throughout the country, coun-try, for New York, Pennsylvania, and T .in nrntiaVtiv rIuiw the New Jersey will probably show tne highest percentages of loss, while in some portions of the vest and middle wost tho decrease was relatively slight. During the year several small companies com-panies went into tho hands of receivers and the financial stress also led to a change of control in a group of plants operating chiefly in the Pacific states. A fortunate effect of tho depression was that It put a stop, temporarily, to the flotation of fraudulent or doubtful cement securities; though it is likely that with improvement in general business bus-iness conditions promotion schemes will again be taken up on an even larger scale than before the depression. depres-sion. The year 1909 opens with heavy .stocks of cement on hand at most mills, but with good prospects for a steady though slow revival in the cement ce-ment trado. It is unlikely that this revival re-vival will be sufficiently rapid to push mllU to the capacity durlngthc year, and it is therefore possible that the high record for output made in 1901 will remain unbroken for another 3 eai at least. The total maximum capacity of existing plants Is now about 60, 000,000 barrels a year. Despite the business depression, oi rvorimnc nnrtlv because of It, then have been a number of important technical tech-nical and Industrial developments in the cement Industry during 1908, and others are still pending. |