The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1897-02-10

were at work. The vein Of ore that l
saw ranged in width from eight to
twenty-four feet. 1t is great sand
wich of iron ore between walls of slate
and rock. It dips down into the
ground at an angle of about thirty. five
degrees.
l could hear the boom! boom |!
boom of the blasting powder as went
through the mine. At times the air
shook and quivered with the concus-
sion, and our candles were blown out.
Dynamite is used almost altogether in
iron mining, and the danger is very
great if it is not carefully handled.
Every now and then accidents occur in
the miues. Men are torn to pieces,
the walls fall in, and there is great loss
of life.
Leaving the mine, next went to
one of the great furnaces at the foot of
Red Mountain, where the ore is turhed
into pig iron. Iron, you know, never
occurs pure in a state of nature. The
ore of the Red Mountain, which is
used at the Bessemer furnaces, con-
tains only about forty-eight per cent.
OF iron, and the superintendent told
me that the purest iron stone found
anywhere contains only seventy per
cent. The rest is made up of rock and
other minerals, and it is necessary to
separate the iron before it can be used
for manufactures. This process is
known as making pig iron. The iron
is mixed with limestone and coke in
great furnaces. which aIe, l Judge, as
high as six.story house. The fur
naces are filed with alternate layers
of coke, limestone and iron. It takes
an enormous blast to furnish enough
heat for such furnace, and the blast
Is created by immense engines, which
force the air first through what are
perhaps the biggest stoves of the
world. They are immense tubes, many
feet high, and as big around as city
gas tank. They are lined with fire
brick and are heated by the gas which
comes from the furnaces. The air is
made to pass through these enormous
stoves before it goes to the blast and
il produces heat so intense that the
iron and steel machinery of the fur
mace would not last minute were not
every bit of it enveloped in water. All
of the pipes are incased in other pipes
which are kept full of cold flowing
water, and this water is forced about
the outside of the furnace whenever
smelling is going on. The heat is so
great that the iron is melted in very
short time. 1t is drawn off from each
furnace twice day.
1t flows out at the foot in little
river of gold. The stream looks like
molten gold alloyed with copper until
it gets distance of perhaps twenty
feet away from the furnace. Here it
is divided into two streams. The iron
flows one way and the Stag or refuge,
which hos formed scum and floats On
the top, is carried off in another.
The iron is now of a yellow gold color.
1t seems to have lost its reddish tint
1t runs off in golden stream into a
bed Of sand, in which little holes have
been cut or nodded, SO that it looks
for all the world like q garden patch
ready for planting. These holes are
of just the size and shape of what is
known as an iron pig. They are
about as Dig around as the upper arm
of good-sized man and about three
feet long. The yellow stream finds
its way in through them and soon tie
garden is full of these bright yellow
pigs, which turn to q copper tint as
they cool and then change to thergray
or cold pig iron. As the mstal is
cooling the heat waves dance Jver the
garden patch of hot iron, Ind you
have to hold you hat before Your face
to keep from being scorched. After
the pigs are cooled they are piled up
ready to be shipped to differenS parts