Kansas City daily journal., 1897-01-03

and are heated by gas which comes from
the furnaces. The air is made to pass
through these enormous stoves before it
goes to the blast and produces a heat so
intense that the iron and steel machinery
of the furnace would not last a minute
were not every bit of it enveloped in water.
All of the pipes are iucased 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 n very short time. 1t is drawn
off from each furnace twice a day.
4 River of Gold.
It flows out at the foot in a little river
of gold The stream looks like molten gold
alloyed with copper until it gets a distance
of perhaps twenty feet away from the
furnace. Here it is divided into two
streams. The iron flows one way and tho
Stag or refuse, which has formed scum
and floats on the top. is carried off in an
other. The iron is now of n yellow gold
color. II seems to have lost its reddish
tint. 1t runs off in u golden stream into q
bed of sand, in which little holes have been
cut nodded. so that it looks for all the
world like garden patch ready for plant
ing. These holes are of just the size and
shape of what is known as an iron pig.
They are about as big around as the upper
arm of a Good-sized man and about three
feet long. The yellow stream finds its way
in through them and soon the garden ia
fun of these bright yellow pigs which turn
to a copper tint as they cool, and then
change TO the gray of cold pig iron
As the metal is cooling the heat waves
dance over the garden patch of hot iron,
and YOU have TO hold your hat before your
face to keep from being scorched- After
the pigs are cooled they are piled up ready
to be shipped to different parts of the
United States for use in manufacturinSt
The Stag goes to waste. 1t runs off into 81
| great iron pot fastened on car wheels and'
| is wheeled on Il railroad track some dis
| tance away and emptied out upon the Stag
| heap. There are mountains of such Stag
near every great furnace, and the inven-
| ton has vet to he made which will turn il
to any other use than that of ballasting
| railroads.
We Lead the World.
We lead the world not only in the produc-
ton of iron, but also in the making OF pig
iron. We made 100000 tons in 1892,
which was an increase of more than 1,OO0
| per cent over the product of 1865 Since
| that time we have increased our steel prod
| uct $50 times, and We are now making
| enough steel every year TO give every man.
woman and child in the United States 40
| pounds, and have some to spare. Some Of
| our pig iron which was lately sent to En-
| gland, I am told, was sold for less than 81
a ton. We made pig iron at the time of the
| revolution, which was worth $50 n ton,
and We are making steel now, it is said,
almost as eheaply as a good class of iron.
Millions in 1t.
! It is wonderful how iron increases in
value after it is turned into machinery or
articles of use by the people. You get soma
| idea of what labor is worth when you think
of it. 1t is estimated by Carroll d. Wright
| of the labor bureau, for instance, that 70
| cents worth of common iron ore when
turned into bar iron is worth s.. If you
make it into horseshoes it is worth so, or,
| If into table knives, $50; 20 cents worth
| of ore manufactured into needles is worth
| $500, and when made into buttons more
| than SO 900. II the iron is converted into
watch springs its value is almost ten times
as great, and when turned into hair springs
| your 20 cents worth of rock and stone will
| sell for the enormous sum of 500 900. The
| difference between 70 cents and $40OO
\ is the value paid for labor alone So you
see that, after all, the real wealth of q
| country lies in the muscles and brains OF
it's people. If we could turn all of our
| iron ore into hair springs. and could find
| customers for them, we would be SO rich
| that we could buy the whole world and
take flyers in all the speculative property
on the sun, moon and stars and still have
money to burn.
FRANK G. CARPENTER.