The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1892-12-01
FORTUNES ON THE DOCKS.
HEAPS OF vALUELESS-LoOk
STUFF WORTH MILLIONS.
Millions of Tons of Iron Ore Find
Their Way to Lake Erie Ports-h
Gigantic industry.


filed with representations
OF systems and methods of moving the
worlds products it will have few, says
a Cleveland (Ohio) letter to the New
York Advertiser, that will surpass in
unique and peculiar interest the sight
that may be seen daily at the ore ports
of Lake Erie.
The discovery of extremely rich and
almost inexhaustible deposits of Bessemer
ore in the Lake Superior districts a
quarter of a century ago, as we'll as more
recently, has been followed by the
growth of a commerce that is unrlvaled
OF its kind in the world, and nowhere
to-day will such mountains of rich ore
be found heapel ready for the trans
forming fire Of the furnaces as at Cleve-
land, Ashtabula. Fairport and Buffalo
and at South Chicago, on Lake Aichi.
gan.
The ore. being less bulky than coal,
can be carried farther than the coal IN
the journey to ward each other, SO that
but little ore is reduced in the upper
peninsula of Michigan. Much of 1t
meets the coal at Chicago and Cleve-
Land, but the greater part is carried to
the Mahoning Valley and Western Penn
sylvania furnaces. As the lakes are
open for navigation but seven months in
the year, it is necessary to and storage
place for the Gre required to supply the
furnaces during the winter months. AS
cordingly, at Cleveland, Ashtabula and
Falrport miles of docks have been built,
lining the narrow rivers that put into the
lake at these points, and here, during
the summer, Is unloaded hundreds of
thousands OF tons of iron ore and gradu-
ally forwarded to the furnaces by rail.
1t is almost impossible to appreciate
the magnitude of this great traffic with
out walk along the docks between
great ranges of iron ore hills, thirty and
forty feet in height, only few railroad
tracks separating them like narrow val
legs, and overhead great steel frame
work of ore hosting machines. The
rattle of the steel buckets as they are
raised from the holds of the great black
hulled vessels by the docks and go
creaking on the cantilevers back to
whatever point the engineer has elected
to dump them startles one, and the
stranger lodges involuntasiiy as they
rush backward and forward over his
head.
Half hidden behind the ranges of red,
brown or sparkling gray ore, the colors
varying with the qualities, is the pony
engine operating each set of hosting
machines, putting and Kissing away,
adding familiar element to the strange
scene. Now train of fiat cars comes
creeping along, drawn by snorting
switch engine. In each car are dozen
fills of those great ton buckets, looking
like such light load, as compared with
the heaping coal cars so usual in other
places, yet testing the strength of the
gondolas quite as fully. A red dust rises
and falls, and the laborers are covered
with it. Their clothes are ocherous red,
boots the color of the tanbark piles they
knew as leather, and sweat burrows are
down their dusty faces and through the
rust tnged boards.
The unloading of q vessel at one of
these docks is rapid work. All the lake
ore carriers have six and many of them
eight matches, and when they come to
the dock hosting machine is put to
work in each. The great buckets arc
filed below, while the others are drawn
up and emptied, sometimes being carried
back on the overhead railway of the
cantilevers three hundred feet or more.
Thus it is possible to take Two thousand
tons-enough to load one hundred and
fifty ordinary fat cars--from a vessel in
SIX or eight hours.
Few persons can appreciate what
l, 500, 600 tons of ore means without
having it put in some more familiar
shape. The docks at this port, where
that amount or more is received every
year, have river frontage of over two
miles, aud are from $50 to 2S5 feet
deep. Here is heaped hills of fine red
and brown hematite, like so much ocher-
Gus Gravel, or tie cOarscr Jumps of
sparkling gray magnetic ore, varying
widely in quality and price.
The casual observer as ne walks along
can distin, uish but four or five, or at
most half a dozen, grades of ore. But
experts know that these immense conical
piles are strictly classified, and that up
ward of eighty different grades have
their place in the market lists. But how
much is l. 500. 900 tons of ore2 Loaded
on fat cars thirty i've feet long and
carrying fifteen tons each it would make
train 700 miles long, or more than five
times the distance from Cleveland to
Pittsburgh Yet this is but about one
third the iron ore laid down at Lake
Ere ports every summer. The total
would more than fill two trains of such
fiat cars extending from Chicago to New
York City
Besides this great ore traffic, which
annually amounts to $50, 900, 900 or more
in value, there is shipped from the ports
of Lake Erie an immense amount of coal,
both anthracite and bituminous, to Chi
cage, Milwaukee, Duluth and smaller
points. where it is stored for shirment