The Abbeville messenger. (Abbeville, S.C.) 1884-1887, 1886-05-25
STEEL RAILS.
How They Are Made by the
BeSSemer Process
Turning Heaps of Iron Ore Into Steel Rails
Ready for the Market.

Ready tor the Market,
Within sig't Of the battle field where
Braddock WIS defeated in 1866, near tho
present city of Pittsburgh, the Mcssrs.
Carnegie have made amends for that re.
pulse of civilization by the great victory
of peace which is known in the CONNER
cial world as the Edgar Thomson Iron
and Steel Works. Here iron ores arc
made into Bessemcr steel rails before
they are allowed to cool. The ores from
mines in Pennsylvania, in Michigan, in
the South, and from abroad are unloaded
In heaps, between the walls of which are
roads for carts and paths for wheelbar-
rows, laid out as streets in a city, far be-
low the tops of the little mountains of
ore and coke and limestone. Here the
proper admiXtures of different kinds of
ores, and with them of coke and lime
stone, are made and hoistcd to the fur
naces. These burn day and night. seven
days a week, and to create the blast the
power of along row Of enormous engines
is required. Though singly they would
have that almost inaudible motion of the
great Corliss engine, in combination their
own motion and the blast they produce
make q roar of power more like elemental
forces than of machinery of mans devils
ing.
AT the Carnegie Works the pig-iron
stage of Bessemer steel manufacture is
avoided. The molten iron is not allowed
to cool, but iscoveyed in iron cars di-
rectly to the Bessemcr 'sconvertcrs."
The converter" is the clliptical vessel,
swung high above the floor, in which the
iron is converted into Bessemcr steel. 1t
swings on axles ut either side, and the
molten iron is run into it while it is in a
horizontal position. Another great blast
now does its work, this time of cold air,
and as the converter gradually regains it's
vertical position the | st is started be-
fore the metal reaches the bottom of the
vessel. With a great roar the flame
shoots upward, and the oxygen is alb
sorbed by the silicon and manganese.
Then the dame increases in size and bril-
hancy, and becomes first orange and af-
terward purple, and when the carbon is
removed it subsidies. The converter is
now tipped over, and the inc tallic man.
gancsc (spiegeleisen is generally used)
that is necessary to complete the making
OF steel is added, and the flame and Gin
ders shoot higher thar ever, with great
brllllancy and much noise. The space
about the converter for a moment is filled
with flying flame and sparks that make
as brilliant n spectacle as can be con-
ceived. All that now remains to be done
is to pour the purified molten mass from
the converter into ladies and thence into
molds, where as soon as it becomes solid,
1t is Besscmcr steel in ingots. It is not
allowed to cool, but is loaded by hydrau-
lie derricks on iron cars, and drawn by a
locomotive into the rolling mill. There
every lngot is placed in a furnace and
again heated red-hot. On iron trucks
the rehcated ingot is conveyed to the
blooming train, where it is forced be-
tween rollers time and again, every time
within a narrower space, until it is con-
sidcrably elongated. The ponderous
machinery moves it on to q solid carriage,
where it is cut into pieces, or ''blooms,"
each OF proper quantity to make a rail.
Tho rest of the process is simple, but it
is simply Titanic. The next rollers the
block of steel reaches elongate it still
more, and shape it into q rail. The rail
is cut smooth at each end by circular saws
as quickly as matches are sawed from
blocks of soft wood, the difference being
that his saw-dust is red-hot sparks. The
roll is Strengthened by the eye under an
other steam hammer, bolt-holes are bored
at either end, it is now allowed to cool
for the first time since it ceased to be ore.
and is ready for the market. The ma
nipulation Of the rcd-hot metal, whether in
molten or malleable condition, from the
blast-furnaces to the last process, is al
most wholly accomplished automatically:
at the Edgar Thomson Works the onlv
fuel used is. natural gas.-Harper's Week.
ly.
Jordan's Knapsack.
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