Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1873-04-22
NO. CHI.

A traveller starting from Virginia, fol-
lowing walden's Ridge, suddenly COM
ing in sight of Oakdale or lockwood,
would be inclined to rub his eyes and won
der if the busy scene spread out before him
was not dream. There is nothing from
the Virginia line to Oakdale or lockwood |
calculated to prepare the strange traveller
for the changefrom the unmistakable evil
dences Of a primitive style Of farming and
living to the blazing furnaces and hum OF
industry that he hears at the places nam
ed. But if he followed the geological
formation of the ridge, and was looking !
for the most favorable location for blast
furnaces he would have no cause for sur
prise. Busy hands and sagacious minds
are but improving the advantages nature
offers, for we know of no points in East
Tennessee where the materials for the
manufacture of iron are more abundant,
richeror more convenient than at the places
to which we have referred. 4
Five years ago, resolute, energetic,
practical iron man picked his way, amid
huge powders, to the site of the present
blast furnace at lockwood. As the bowl
ders and rocks were, too, numerous to
permit even horse to pick his way to the
site. the name given to the place was emf
neptIy appropriate. Timber was abundant
the clay was good, limestone convenient
and with these materials the energy and
genius of a Wilder needed but busy hands
and tools to speedily build furnace, open
coal and ore beds, put down tram roads
and make iron. Five years ago lockwood
was lust as the Red man had left it near
century ago! To-day it is busy town of
observation-disclosures, the site gofpthe largest
blast furnaces in the South.
THE COAL, ORE AND LIMESTONE
used in the furnace are all convenient. A
horse railroad winding up. the. side of
Walden's ridge about half mile from the
furnace leads to the mouth of the coal
bank. do not know how to describe the
quantity of coal inside. Most veins of coal
run regularly and of an uniform thickness.
Some are five feet, some seven and some
less. The coal at lockwood is not found
in beds-it is there in mountains. We
were inside of one of these mountains.
Below, above and all around us was coal.
A space as large as thecourt room in Knox
willie was dug out. IF lockwood ever needs
an Opera House or a city Hall, they ought
to dig it out of one Of their coal mountains.
The coal is easily mined, cokes well and
can be carried to the furnace at unusually
low fgures.saE na6E aRIRAEr7
The ore is dug from the hills all around
and at distances varying from one-half to
two miles from the furnace and costs about
two dollars delivered for roasting. The
limestone is of superior quality and is
brought about mile from the works.
IL Il AL xI,N
manufacture of iron.
As this article will be read by many who
have never seen furnace, it would, per-
haps, be interesting to explain briefly the
process. We will endeavOr to make it
easily understood:
In the first place large brick chimney
or stack is built, which is circular in form,
about sixty feet high and at an average of
about twelve feetin diameter. The diane
ter at the bottom or hearth is about seven
feet. The hearth is five feet high and con-
structed so as to draw off the iron and Gin
der and to admit the hot air. Into the top
of this stack the coal, ore and limestone
are emptied. Such large stack filled with
these raw materials would not burn very
freely if left to ordinary combustion. TO
intensity the heat and hasten the combus-
ton, hot air is forced into the stack. Inn
mense ovens are built, through which
large pipes are laid. Under these pipes no.
fires are kept and through the pipes, by
means of powerful engines, air is forced at
an enormous pressure. This air, forced
through the heated ovens by the engines
as described, is instantanOusly heated and
conducted into the stack at the bot
tom. This hot blast keeps the fire
and heat in the stack at a uni
melted it sinks into the bottom of the
hearth. The limestone gathers the cinder
from the coal and the impurities from the
Gre in liquid state, swimming on top of
the melted iron. This cinder is drawn off
every few hours. The iron is drawn off
every twelve hours and run into sand
moulds in the shape of bars, commonly
called pigs. The hot air forced into the
bottom of the stack would carry the flame
and gases from the coal up through the
stack and out at the top in huge bright
flame if it were not arrested. But as the
Gas is too valuable to be lost that way, a
huge iron cap, like a bell, is constructed at
the top, which can be dropped down into
the stack at will. This cap arrests the gas,
and with the aid of the pressure from the
hot blast below, it is forced into huge,
iron boiler like tube which runs from near
the top of the stack down underneath the
boilers and hot blast ovens, where it is
burned. Enough gas is thus saved to heat
the air in the hot blast ovens and some
times enough to keep up steam in the en-
CINE boilers. This is a brief explanation
of the manufacture of pig iron as made at
lockwood. 81
gr-. THE VALUE OF THIS INDUSTRY. oe.
But one stack is now i'm operation, which
turns out about twenty tons of metal every
twenty-four hours. A new and larger
one is new being constructed, which will
be done by the LIST of July. When the
two are in operation, about seventy tons
Over two hundred men find steady en-
ployment about these works at good wages.
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