Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1870-04-13
THE COST OF IRON FURNACES.


A writer in the Chattanooga Times finds
fault with the estimates of the cost per ton
of making pig iron, a. published in our
first issue, and undertakes to make some
corrections.
In the first place, he objects to our esti-
mate of the cost of building a furnace, and
gives, as he says, the cost of erecting, in
Pennsylvania, a furnace 20 feet high, with
IL or 20 feet boshes, capable OF producing
20 tons of iron per diem. The cost he fix
es at 100000. Now, our readers will OBJ
serve that his estimates are made for the
State of Pennsylvania. SHe will not, GER
tainly, claim that furnace can be built in
Tennessee as cheap as in Pennsylvania
He does not meet our case at all in reply
ing with such figures. We distinctly
stated that Our estimate was made for this
State and for this section. 1t costs more to
build blast-furnace in Tennessee than in
Pennsylvania, not only because of the
higher price of skilled labor, material, and
Of machinery, but also because in Tennes-
see tits necessary to build more than SIM
ply blast-furnace. In Tennessee we have
no large shops convenient to the mining
districts where furnaces can be repaired
and refitted on short notice, as is the case
in Pennsylvania. In Tennessee it il,
therefore, necessary to build shops and pro-
vide machinery that do not really pertain
to furnaces or that could well be dispensed
with if our iron men could have sufficient
mechanical skill convenient and ready. as
in some other places. But the increased
outlay required to provide such machinery
and skilled labor here is legitimate charge
in estimating the cost of furnace.
Again, our estimate included the cost of
mining and transporting ore, coal and
limestone, and of all the machinery neces-
sary to prosecutethat important part of the
work attending the manufacture of iron-
cost greatly reduced or entirely unneces-
sary in some parts of Ohio and PennsyIva-
MIA. With this explanation, which we
thought We had made sufficiently clear i'm
our former article, we think our figures
none too high, the Times correspondent to
the contrary notwithstanding.
Again, in the same article, tho writer OBJ
jects to the interest fixed upon the cost of
our furnace. He says " ak per cent. il the
iatc ~ Wliicu money can DE borrowed NJ IN
the North on undoubted security" Money
may be borrowed in some localities at six
per cent, but we would like to see tho man
who loans money in Tennessee ut that
rate, or anything approximating II. The
rate fixed in our estimate was IL per cont.
We know of money actually loaned at
twice that rate, and every business man
knows that money cannot now DO borrow
ed, for any time or i'm any quantity, In
Tennessee, for less than the rats We have
named.
While 1t should not no the object of leg
islation to protect mon engaged in business
in isolated localities, or men who pay usur-
ious rates OF interest, legislation should not,
on the other hand, be based upon tho cost
of manufacturing iron in the most favora-
bile localities Of State having all tho nat
ural advantages OF Pennsylvania, when II
is apparent that iron can never DO made
under tho same advantages elsewhere.
What would protect the, iron interests Of
Pennsylvania might break down and de-
stroy those interests everywhere else.