Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1873-08-13
A Visit 40 OakdaIe,

EDITORS CHRONICLE: This fiourishing
village lies about nine miles northwest of
Kingston, in Roam county, between Wal
denis Ridge and the Cumberland Noun
tains, in narrow little valley or cove of
the same name. Perhaps nowhere else in
the world has nature been more lavish in
providing for the manufacture of iron.
Cumberland Mountain seems to be an i'm
mense mass of coal. and along its base and
parallel with it lies Walden's Ridge, filled
with ineXhaustible stores of rich iron ore
and lime stone. On account of these natu-
raj facilities for the manufacture of iron
New York company purchased about 1if-
teen thousand acres of mineral land and
are erecting the most extensive iron works
in East Tennessee. Selecting site one
half mile from the coal, one and a half
miles from the ore and q few hundred
yards from the limestone, the company
erected their furnace, and as many of your
readers may never have seen a 'hot blast'
furnace, / will mention some of its dis
tinguishing features: First, there is the
furnace stack, sixty feet high and about
twenty feet in diameter at its widest point,
made of sheet iron, three-eighths of an
inch thick, lined inside with common
brick, then with fire brick beside the
furnace stack is the elevator stack through
which the coal, ore, etc. are elevated and
cast into the furnace. AS soon as
the furnace is charged it is closed
at the top by means of bell-shaped cap,
sending the smoke and gass down along
the outside through tube three feet in di-
ameter which convery the gas underneath
huge boilers, where it is let out in Jets and
set on fire which heats the boilers and
forms all the steam needed to drive a thou
sand horsepower engine. This engine
blows the bellows from which the air is
carried to hot blast tubes which are also
enclosed in tight furnace and heated by
the gas from the furnace not needed TO
drive the engine In these tubes the air
becomes so hot as nearly to melt the tubes
before it reaches the air.
The advantages of this process of smelt-
ing are First, no fuel is needed to drive
the engine-the gas which has heretofore
not been utilized performing this office /;
Second, the air blown into the furnace is
so hot as nearly to melt ore, thus saving
an immense amount of fuel. The furnace
will be ready to commence operations by
the first of October, when it is expected to
manufacture seventy tons of iron per day,
as 1 was informed by one of the overseers
of the works.
Already extensive operations have been
commenced in mining coal and iron.
| TramWays are constructed TO the coal
banks by which coal is brought to the fur
mace stock. Two veins of ore, about thir-
ty feet apart, from eighteen 10 twenty
four inches thick, and of unknown depth,
have been opened. This ore is the red
hematte or dyestone and is very rich.
From three to five hundred hands are EN-
ployed in mining, building, and constrnc-
ing roads. Many of these hands are for
eigners who are far the most efficient work
men.
Nine months ago only q single house
was found i'm Orkdale; now IL has u pOpu-
lation of about twelve hundred inhabi-
tants, The dwellings are mostly one