The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1858-12-16
The Iron Business.


account by every one to whose knowledge
they come. The association of coal owners,
recently convened in this city, collected
some facts in regard to the manufacture of
iron, and the future prospects Of that branch
Of business which would create on the Ohio
River, in another generation, one of the
principal demands for coal. From the facts
laid before them by G. E. Sellers, Esq, for
merly an extensive iron master, aud now
President of the Saline Coal Company, the
coal men were persuaded that the coal field
that embraced their mines, extending from
Cloverport to the mouth of the Cumberland,
must inevitably become the largest iron
manufacturing district on the continent, and
that the home consumption of coal for
steam, the making of iron, and for other
manufactures, would, in another generation,
equal the capacity of their coal mines to
supply, vast as that now appears to be. If
the facts justify the catering predictions of
the coal men, they present equally en-
couraging hopes to the landowner, the far
lner, the artizan, laborer, and business man
No one can fail to be interested in them.
By returns from the celebrated furnaces
on Lake Champlain, and the smelling fur
naces on the North River, and in New Jer-
sey and Eastern Pennsylvania, the cost of
the transporting to the furnace, after they
were mined, the materials for the produc-
ton of iron, viz-the ore, the lime stone,
and the coal-was equivalent to 81 30 and
S. per ton on the iron product. To all
these Eastern furnaces the coal has to be
brought from one direction-the limestone
for fuxes, from another, and some one of
the varieties of ore which they are obliged
TO combine to produce good article, is to be
sought at distance from the smelling fur
mace. The collection of these crude mate
rails involves heavy expense in the trans
portation alone.
At the well known and profitable Cam
bria furnaces, in Pennsylvania, one of the
most eligibly located smelling furnaces in
the Allegheny range, the hauling OF the
materials to the tunnel head, for ton of its
excellent iron, costs one dollar and eighty
cents and the expense of transporting a
ton of pig metal from the Cambria works
to Pittsburg, is 81 80 per ton i; making the
whole cost of transporting the material to
the furnace, and the iron to navigable
waters, So 80 per ton.
At the eastern furnaces, after paying this
heavy cost for the transportation of the ma
terial, pig metal can be produced for about
SIS or Sic per ton. At the Cambria works
it is made at cost Of about Sll per ton
The cost of mining the ores and getting the
Auxes and coal to the furnaces in Ohio,
Western Virginia and Kentucky, place those
works about upon an equality Of advantages
with the eastern iron manufacturers. In
Missouri, which abounds in the richest iron
ores and abundant coal miles, the materials
for the production of iron are separated by
wide distances and expensive Transports
ton. The iron mountain is to be disem-
boweled, and its heavy ores to be carried to
St. Louis to meet the coal from another dis
tant field As two tons of ore, two tons Of
coal, and one of limestone, are necessary to
make ton of pig metal, the expense Of
collecting these from points one hundred
miles asunder, must be equal to one-third
the value of iron. The rich deposits of ore
around Lake Superior--as far as is known
are located far from any coal field, and
no forests can now be depended upon tc
smelt iron in quantities to meet modern de-
mands for the article.
After surveying these rich fields of miner
al wealth, the coal men return to our OWL
region, and find two and sometimes three
varieties of ore with coal and limestone
living in iuxtaposition, and sometimes in
terstratiied with each other. In the con
tiguous position of the materials for tn
production of iron, we have an advantag
in many of our localities-equivalent t
S. to Sd per ton, or 25 per cent upon tn
cost of the iron.
In Southern Illinois, some most remark
able developments have been made. Alon
the course of Saline river, in the counties Q
Hardin and Gallatin, shafts have been sun
through eight superintendent workabl
veins of coal, whose united thickness
about 80 feet Interstratifed with thes
seams of coal are Eve brands of iron or
which can be mined and taken out OF tn
shafts with the cool. In the adjoining hill
are endless deposits of other varieties {
ores with limestone for Huxes. AS vast i
quantity as this immense coal deposit ar
pears to be, it is calculated that the Coz
would all be required to smelt the iron tha
surrounds it. In the opinion of the emf
nent geologist, D. D. Overland his jude
nlent is confirmed by the estimates of praC
ticel men--iron can be made in that regio
for one quarter less that it can be produced i
the Great Western Iron Works. If by tn
increase of duties and the adoption of scien
tifc duties, new impetus be given to til
IRON business, and capital shall seek inves
ment once more in smelling furnace.
Southwestern Indiana, Middle Kentucky
and Southern Illinois will be the theatres f
vast enterprises in the iron business-no r