The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1897-07-28
A eRITIsH view.
for Their Supremacy in the
Pig Iron Market.

Fig iron MARKET
Many estimable people surveying
the statistic evidence of national
progress and retrogression appearedi
to have made up their minds that
the indus trial prestige of Greati
Britain was slowly but surely wan
ing, because we seemed to have lost
our supremacy as an ironmaking ma
ton and to have yielded up our prior
ity of position to the United States
and to some extent also to Germany,
To such persons it may come as an
agreeable surprise to learn that the
output of pig iron in Great Britain
for the first half of the current year
as ascertained by the British Iron
Trade association, places us once
more in the front rank as an iron
producing country Our total make
of pig iron for the first half of the
current year was 1928, 444 tons,
which is larger output than we
have ever before attained In six
months. This output, however, is
not equal to that reached by the
United States in the same period.
With the commencement of 1896
the output of pig iron in the United
States was at the rate of about IL =
900, 600 tons a year, but since then
the output has fallen month by
by month, until it is estimated that
it does not now exceed rate of
6, 800, 600 a year, while the output
for the IL months, assuming the
continuance of the present rate of
production, has been estimated at
less than $500, 1000 tons, which
would, of course, be less than the
British output for the same period,
assuming the maintenance of the
rate of output during the first six
months of the year. As for Ger
many, which is the next largest
iron producing country after Great
Britain and the United States, the
production up to the present time
justifies the belief that the total out
put of pig for the year will be about
5000, 600 tons, or approximately
about 2, 800, 600 tons under the out
put of the United Kingdom, from all
of which it seems reasonable to ex-
pect that at the end of 1896 our own
country will have fully reasserted
its old supremacy.
The most striking feature of the
progress that has been achieved in
the pig-iron industry of the United
Kingdom during recent years has
been the increased productivity of
the plant employed owing to inn
provements of design and methods
of working that almost amount to
revolution. A quarter of century
ago there were 915 blast furnaces
erected in this country, of which
6S9 were in operation. These 699
furnaces produced in 1871 an aver
age output of g, 665 tons per furnace
q tons of coal per ton of pig iron
produced. In 1895 the average pro-
duction of the 344 furnaces in oper-
alton in the United Kingdom was
%, 700 tons, and the average con-
sumption of coal per ton of iron pro-
duced was 10y tons, so that in the
interval the average output per fur |
mace had increased by about 165 per
cent, and the average consumption
of coal per ton of pig-iron produced !
had been reduced by about three
quarters of a ton. Even these |
figures, however, do not represent |
the full measure of the advance that |
has been accomplished during this
period. In some districts the prog
ress has been much greater than in
others, and the maximum OF prog
ress achieved in a few Individual
cases points to what might have
been done in the way of still greater
progress and indicates what may be
expected in the future. London