The age-herald., 1897-09-09

United States, and of every manufae-
 fuIlng country or sulope as we'll of the
 wcnaertA resources and almost daz-
 zEng possibilities Of Blrming4fam aLd 1 ahe country around it. To attempt to | say more scans almost needless rspet1- 1 tlon An1 yet 10 the stranger who pays l YlS4t to un19 section there comes a | feeilnS, no matter how much he may l nave read concerning it, that eompeasd tle queen Or Sn'eba, amazed at the WOnr 1 dct5 and glories of Solomon and hs I kingdom, to declare that the half had 1 not been told unto her Here good | Mother Nature has certainly dealt out her treasures with no naggard hand Not
 coltent with the bestowal of one great l res0u.ee, she has heapsd half a dozen
 or moro. together in lavish profusiCh.
 Nor are they imprisoned deep down in me bowels or the earth, to be sought and nad onty by the hardesl. sort of labor, 1 the most perfect skill and the most pQr- S-stent effort They lie almost open to 1 the sun, coal, ore and limestone, invl.- 1 Ing the sons of sfubal Cain to partake of
 them and cast them srlio the furnace
 ana Ihere forge or theLn a burn.sned cIcWn, more glorious than the ancient | iron crown Of Lombardy," with wh. oh
 to adorn the brow of the giant indGGtiy of .ihis age of iron.
 Briefly speaking, what are the advant- | ages this favored region possesses Per
 maps they can be best and most suc- | cfhotly stated in ilhe words of Mir. James
 Bowron, treasurer of tho Tennessa Coal,
 Iron and Ra4l.oad company. In an arti- | Gle recently contributed to the New York
 Flnaracier, Mir. Bowron, while admitting | that lhe blast furnaces, coal and ore of l the Birmln2ham region are equalled in some parts Of the country and surpassed
 lh seIne respects In others, says:
 ''What then, is the secret? Simply | thft, nguratively speaking, man may
 take broad 'brimmed hat and place 1t uo"h on large scale map, and he Will | cover with it the coal mines, the coke l ovens, the red ore mines. the brown ore 1 mines, the Limestone and dolomte quar-
 ries, a1e blast furnaces and the railroads when knat them togelher in one homo-
 gensous body.
 There is in Birmingham no question
 involved of carrying coal from Councils vile to Duluth to meea the ore, or of l carrying the ore from the Mesaba rangs TO Chcago, or Cleveland, or Pittsburg
 10 meet the coal. Birmingham can smile
 at the exports of Middlesboro (England) | coke to smelt Sornorrostro ores at Bill
 boa and the shipment of that ore to | meet the Durham cok7 at MiddlesbeCo AL one furnace plant in the outskirts
 of Birmingham the production of pig
 iron involves the equivalent of the pay ment of one ton of freight 15 miles. At
 another large plann the total transpor-
 tation Of materials is equivalent to 36-
 ton miles per ton of iron productoin." Discussing the same question of trans
 portation Of materials another Birming-
 ham ironmaSter, the same man who
 made the prediction with which this l article begins, said:
 MT Swank, the iron and steel statis- | tieian, says that in the United States | the average haul necessary to assem- | bie at the furnace the several raw ma | terials, coal, ore and limestone, used l in making ton of pig iron. is 735 miles. Th7 average haul here in Bir-
 mingham does not exceed 35 miles," Looking at a map of this region so 1 prolific in natural wealth, it is seen that | Birmingham lies in the center of a val l ley,e both sides of which are lined for | miles with practically in=xhaustible de- posbts of red ore and with occasional | beds of brown ore Stretching away to l the north and northwest and fringed by l the ore deposits lies the great Warrior | coal field, covering possibly 5,000 square
 miles. East and southsast lie the small l CT Cahaba and Coosa coal fields, also | touching for almost their entire length | the ore deposi,s. Scattered among and around them but farther from Birming- ham are the brown ore fields. Thes+, while numerous and valuable, have not l the vast extent of the red ore deposits. | Clustering in and around Birmingham and at Bessemsa, Ensley, Pratt City, | Oxmoor, Woodward, Trussville, Wander l bilt and Thomas are furnaces, ore and | coal mines, coke ovens and limestone | quarries. These towns are from to 1S
 
 | 5 to miles,
 Into this busy industrial center five | great railway systems enter from Il l directions The Louisville and Nash | vile comes from four directions, not only going almost directly north, but also to the ocean at Mobile, Pensacola | and New Orleans. The Southern rail- road, with it's vast system, touches the | tidewater not only at Mobile and Bruns-
 wick in the south, but at Newport News
 in the north. The Central of Georgia l goes to Savannah, and the Alabama l Great Southern to Norfolk and New | port News. Westward the Kansas City, | Memphis and Birmingham baars the 1 products to Kansas City. there to be l distributed throughout the far west.
 In 1896 Alabama produced 922,17O tons | of pig iron, nearly all of which was l made in Jefferson county, of which Bir- mingham is the county seat. For the l first six months of 1897 460000 tons were | produced, the bulk of it from Jefferson
 countys furnaces, fourteen of which. | with combined weekly capacity Of l oyer 15,000 tons, were in blast on Au- gust 20. Jeffeson county in 1896 mined | 3,729,719 tons of coal The output for the first half of this year is placed at l 2,000,0 900 tons. Over 100000 tons of iron l ore were mined in the county last year. During the first six months of 1897
 about 600,000 tons were produced. Last | year the coke product was 1,539,S13 tons, and up to July this year 650,OoO tons ! had been produced.
 l The pig iron shipments from the Ala bama and Tennessee furnaces for the l six month ending July 1, 1897, were 491,- | OO3 tons, and of cast iron pipe 37,S00 tons. l Of this the Birmingham district alone | shipped 336,3 ,327 tons of pig iron and IT, | 079 tons of pipe. The export shipments | in the same period were 120,70S tons of | pig iron and 2,092 tons of pipe.
 There are twenty-five furnaces, two l rolling mills, two steel mills, thousands l of coke ovens, coal mines, one of which | has produced 1000 tons per day; ore l mines working veins that run from 16 l to 40 feet in thickness, the latter. how | ever, being abnormal, 16 feet being the l average, and limestone quarries in this l little stretch of country centering at Bir- | mingham. These facts and figures show | the magnitude of the industry that has | been established here, and, as yet, the l fingers of development have but touched