The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1880-03-19
INDUSTRIAL NOTES.

INDUSTRIAL NOTES.
PITrsBURa used $4,000 tons of iron
week.
PORK packing ranks as the third
American industry.
Truth says that in the last ten years
there have been 1852 strikes i'll Eng
land.
A Boston inventor has made machine
which makes 80 seamless paper boxes
minute.
A MONTREAL firm has received an
order from Cincinnati, Ohio, for 2,G00
tons of ice, and is engaged in shipping it.
THERE are at present in operation in
the vicinity of st. Louis city eleven
large furnaces, as against four only last
year.
WHEELING makes about fourth of all
the mails manufactured in the United
States, aud turns out over l ZOO, 900 kegs
annually.
ONE firm in Baltimore has made con
tract for 100000 tons of iron and iron
ore, aud another for 140, 900 from Eng
lish ports.
In Cincinnati the common council has
fixed the price of gas for the next 10
years at SLIGO a thousand feet. And
even ut that figure gas brings ITO.
The first mill stone ever brought west
of the Genesee river, in 1914, now does
duty for horse block in front of the old
pioneer log-cabin at Silver Lake, N. Y.
THERE is standing offer Oh the part
of the Bahama legislature of $1,000 q
| year for ten years to any company that
will lay cable between Nassau and the
United States.
IT IS estimated by railroad statisticians
that the probable demand OH our steel
and iron mills will be equal to 1,5O0, 900
tons, of which $4,000 will be for new
stock during the year 1880.
THE Providence and Worcester Rail-
road company recently bought 2, $50 tons
of steel rails ut S45. SO per ton, and now
the selling parties have offered $50, 900
to he released from the contract.
IT is estimated that 1000 coke ovens
were built in Pennsylvania during the
past year, and it is thought that the
same number will be erected during the
first quarter of the present year.
ENGLISH rail manufacturers in the
past month received orders from this
country for not less than seventy thou
sand tons of steel and twenty thousand
tons of iron rails.
The tobacco crop of Pennsylvania is Of
greater consequence than may be gen.
orally supposed. In Lancaster, York
and Lebanon counties, in which the bulk
of the tobacco culture is confined, no
less than 24,00O,O00 pounds were pur-
chased last year, valued at So, 600, 900.
THE State Agricultural society of
Pennsylvania has decided to hold the
state fair in the permanent exhibition
building, from the 9th to tho 18th of
September. TO be followed by the sheep
show, which will close on September 25.
They will offer premiums aggregating
$4,000.
AN unprecedented quantity of iron
will be made in the United States this
year. In England furnaces are also be-
ing rapidly blown in. There is no dam
ger of an iron famine. On the contrary,
there will be plenty of it, and the pros
poets are it will all be sold at good prices.
Pittsburg Press.
New steel works are to be erected in
Chicago at cost, including rs acres of
land, OF 81, 00O,0 The new establish
ment is to be completed within q year,
and will consist of four blast furnaces,
Bessemer converting works and steel rail
mill. 1t will employ 1900 men, con-
sumo 100000 tons of ore per year, and
turn out 5000 tons of rails.
The paper trade is agood deal interest
ed in a new kind of paper, made from
palmetto fiber. 1t can be washed with
soap and water, as one would wash a
piece of linen cloth, then rubbed, wrung
out and dried, and still remain intact.
The paper resembles parchment in color.
OF course, il is not 30 s:rong, but is
tough, tho of uneven thickness. 1t is
claimed that the paper can be manufac-
tured at very cheap rate.
In 1868 Bessemer steel rails cost in
this country as high af STA per ton. In
1879 they sold as low rs SAL per ton, a
reduction brought about by the estab-
ishment of American works, making us
independent of British manufactures.
1t is stated thst our Bessemer steel mills
have commenced and are contemplating
extensions which in Is months will in
crease their product ut least 50per cent. :,
and enable them to meet all demands at
low prices.
PENNSYLVANIA mills are asking $6S
per ton for iron and SS5 for first-class
steel rails, and present indications are,
according to the indianapolis Journal,
that iron rails by June /, will be selling
at SIS, and steel rails at 800 per ton.
The winter is so open that track laying
is going on the same as in the summer
months, and many of the mills are crowd
ed to fill present orders, to say nothing
about future contracts made in the last
few months conditionally.
FuRNAcE-owNERs who are mining their
own ores or have old contracts of 81 or
So ton are making 100 per cent. upon
their output. The cost of smelling when
bituminous coal or coke is used does not
exceed $14 or $15 per ton, and rs the
price of pig metals now from $40 to $45,
you will see that the margin of profit Is
enormous. New contracts for ore aver
age about $12, and men who pay this
and also pay the highest price for coke
are still getting rich MS fast as they
ought to desire. -Pits6ury Miner.
BY the Card.
An afflicted paterfamilias writes to the
n, sa,f. II Hv,a 1,ok