Birmingham state herald., 1896-04-19

company Granite City, IT.. 3 1O-ton Granite r;nae. city Steel f1 company
 Illinois Steel company, Chi
 cago, lI.... ."............... 5O-ton
 ~Building.
 From the above table it may be seen that thirty-seven basic open hearth steel furnaces have been built, or were in pro- cess of construction in the United States during the year 1895; and in addition there were ten open hearth furnaces de- signed for acid work all of which will make a speciality of steel castings and are of small capacity, ranging from five to fifteen tons. Two furnaces, only for ordinary acid work, were built during that time, one at the Linden Steel com pany's works in Pittsburg, and one by Worth Bros, Coatsville, Pa. The thirty seven basic open hearth furnaces built since 1894, or in process of erection, rep resent an average daily yield of about seventy tons per furnace assuming two heats in twenty-four hours, or an in- crease in tonnage of basic open hearth steel during the year of 2590 tons per day.
 No attempt has been made to manufac- ture steel in the southern states, except in an experimental way. That this should have been done on so small scale, and with the limited and inadequate capacity, equipment and facilities of each of the enterprises to which we shall refer is pe- culiarly unfortunate.
 At Chattanooga, Tenn, in the year 1890 a basic open hearth plant consisting of two open hearth furnaces, was complet- ed, and on September 15 of the same year the first heat of steam was made, the product being in the form of 10-inch in- gots which were (after being allowed to cool-a thing unheard of in modern prac- tice) carried in crude and expensive way some distance to a min, there re- heated in an ordinary furnace and rolled nj h nrsxytrl etNzAf 4 xa1l. up. Many were the difficulties under which they labored. First, the location of the plant was bad, being remote from all the materials which enter into the manufacture of steel; the arrangement and design, while probably the best that could be had under the circumstances, being a resurrection and utilization of an old abandoned BesSemer plant built many years ago, was extremely incon- venient and cumbersome; iron, which may be obtained in the Birmingham dis trict today of much better quality and adaptability to the requirements of the basic open hearth process for $7.50 ton, cost at Chattanooga S11.50 a ton; gas coal. which is an important item, cost S290 per ton, while the same grade 90 cents per ton; dolomite, or magnetism limestone, of which the basic lining or hearth is composed cost in the neigh borhood of $2 per ton, whereas quality oi SlOHe uiuCn SupeflOr to tfldt used at Chattanooga is found in inexhaustible quantities in the immediate vicinity of Birmingham, Ala, and is today supplied to the blast furnaces of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad company for fuxing purposes at a cost of a little more than one-fourth of that amount. But per haps the greatest difficulty with which they had to contend was the bad ar engagement of the plant and limited ca pacity and equipment of the same With such the output was small and the labor cost and general item of expense excess sive.
 Add to these the rapid and marked de- cline in the price of steel billets, which was about $S5 per ton in Pittsburg at the time the plant started, and less than $20 per ton in Pittsburg when operations were suspended, and we have the causes leading up to the failure of the under taking. The result was but the natural outcome of adverse conditions, and not in any waytcan it be attributed to the character of the metal produced or to thd fact that southern materials were em- ployed, it being fact so we'll recognized as not to admit of discussion that steel of any quality desired may be produced