The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1882-09-21

Iron Making.
AS iron is the grand moving and
mechanical instrument in civilized
life, SO the making of iron is one
of the very grandest ofall arts. But
a few years ago only eight or ten
tons of cast iron could be made by a
furnace in one day and indeed this
is regarded as good days work for
most furnaces even now. But the
process of extracting the metal from
their ores is purely chemical pro-
cess, and with the increase of chemi.
cal knowledge among the iron-mak-
ers, their furnaces have been so much
improved that now they can easily
produce 125 tons of iron every
day in the year. A new furnace
is now building at Roanoke in Vlr.
ginia, small town just west of the
Blue Ridge, and seven miles from
Salem, and there is ali astonishing
Difference between this and the old
fashioned furnaces. The latter con-
sist of great stacks of stone and
BRICK at this new Roanoke fur
mace not a stone or an ordinary
brick Is seen. The buildings of the
furnace consist of immense iron
tubes, formed of sheets of boiler
iron, and the builders are regular
boiler makers from Pittsburgh.
These great tubes, some of them at
widest eighteen feet in diameter,
are lined with fire. bricks, and brick
is manufactured for its precise
position, there being apparently
dozen or twenty different forms and
sizes. These large upright tubes
are connected together by horizon
tai and inclined tubes, some of them
under ground. The whole forms a
single piece of chemical apparatus.
To understand the uses of each
special part, and the combined work
ing OF them altogether, is not easy.
The first and widest end of this
great tube, several hundred feet in
length, is the furnace proper, con-
tanning the ore, the coal and the
limestone. The bellows, or blowing
apparatus, driven by a steam engine
of perhaps a one hundred horse
power, has six MOBILES which
force in the air already heated to
seventeen hundred degrees of
Fahrenheit. The coal used
produces vast stream of infiamable
gas, which is burned under the
boilers of the steam engine, and thus
produces an uninfiamable gas. This,
with another uEinfiamable gas from
the furnace, and also the very hot
air which is forced through the fur
mace, are utilized to heat other air.
to 100 degrees Fab. which is again
driven into the furnace. Here is a
great economy of heat. The last end
of the long iron tube is a tail Chin
ney, perhaps 175 feet high, to pro-
duce still more draft.
1t is a gradual advancement in
the progress of civilization that
we can now design and build
a furnace which will produce
with absolute certainty a hundred
and twenty or a hundred and
thirty tons of iron every dav.
Mr.. David Lemond, native Of Dun
fermline, in Scotland, where in his
early days he was initiated in iron
making. He has lived a dozen or
more years in the United States,
and has been employed to put up
many furnaces, all the way from
Georgia to the straits of Mackinaw,
in Michigan. Besides others, he is
now engaged to build three in Ala
bama; hopeful indication for our
southern states. He has been So
licited, at high salary. to settle
down and conduct special furnaces
from year to year. Still he prefers
not to connect himself with any com.
pany but to go about and construct
new furnaces everywhere. Such a
man is really public benefactor,
and his work must be very profitable
to himself.
There is still an untried improve
ment in iron making which iron men
desire to see thoroughly tested. AT
present the furnace is fed at the top
several times every day with iron
ore, coal and limestone. First there
is put in layer of coal, then layer
ore, and lastly one of limestone.
This is wrong. Instead of being
placed one on another inlayers, they
should be very thoroughly mixed.
Practical men see that by the present
method the ore and the limestone
soon become heated and melted.
But the heating is not
the chief object. The chief
object is chemical action
which shall extract the oxygen and
the earthly impurities from the ore.
The chemical action takes place only
when in actual contact. The igpited
coal can heat the ore at a consider.
able distaD ce, but it cannot extract
the oxygen from the ore at dist
ance-lt must be in real contact.
Therefore the materials should not
be in separate layers, but mixed as
intimately as possible. This init
mate mixing is the reason why dyna-
mite, or gun.cotton, is so much more
powerful than common gun
powder. The materials which give
the power are the same in both
cases and the chemical action is
the same. But in the dynamite these
materials are more closely and thor
oughly mixed. The true principle
is seen in bread making. Unless the
leaven is well mixed with the dough
the bread will be sour in some parts
before it is raised enough in others.
In furnace, for the same reason,
the ore may be deoxydized in
some parts and the iron excessively
carbonlzed before other pieces of
the ore can be deoxydIzed. There
fore this new plan promises greater
rapidity and better iron. All this,
indeed, is mere theory; but while
some theories fail, others lead to the
most valuable results. This one de-
serves to be faithfully tried because
it is so consonant with science and
common sense.