Evening star., 1897-01-02

on. 1 spent time at Birmingham
which, you know, had such a boom not
long ago. and which is doing business
or good financial basis. Birmingham is
the biggest iron producer south of Pitts
burg. There are twenty-six iron furnaces
within thirty miles of the town, which have
a daily output of almost 1900 tons Of pig
iron. They employ nearly 1900 men and
pay wages of $15OOOO a month. They
claim to make iron cheaper than anywhere
else in the world. and one of the furnace
+ Companies shipped some of it's product
not long ago to London and sold it there at
a profit.
Big Money in Iron.
The south is doing it's business on a big,
broad scale. There is an enormous amount
Of money invested, and 1 visited the fur
naces of one company which has a capital
stock Of 81 100000. This is the Tennessee
Coal and Iron Company It has mines
scattered throughout Tennessee and Ala
bama. and l am told that it's property is
worth as much as some Of the small Eu-
ropean kingdoms 1t has a vast area of
coal beds and 1t is now mining more than
1900 tons of coal a day. 1t owns noun
tains of iron ore and last year it produced
more than half million tons Of pig iron
and more than three and one-half million
tons of coal. l visited it's coke ovens at the
town of Bessemer, south of Birmingham
and was told that the ovens there, together
with the others owned by the company.
make almost 5000 tons of coke day, while
out OF It's Alabama iron mines alone are
daily taken more than 5000 tons of ore.
This is perhaps the biggest company of the
south, but there are other large establish
nents. and you may look for an enormous
Industrial development there within the
next few years.
Coal and Iron HuREinr Each Other.
The coal and iron of tho south ,,a
hugsing each other. They lie side by side.
and when their union takes place in the
furnaces with the aid of limestone, which
IS also found near by. iron and steel is pro-
duced more cheaply than from similar
material in any other portion of the
world Next to Alabama the greatest iron
mines of the United States are along Lake
Superior. The biggest coal beds are in
Pennsylvania, more than a thousand miles
away. The limestone Is also far Off and the
products have to travel hundreds of miles
before they can come together. Chicago
makes vast deal Of iron. 1t gets its ore
from Lake Superior and its coal from Penn
sylvania. 1t is the same with Cleveland
and Toledo, but the freight rates on the
great lakes are SO low that we are able to
shoe the seven-league boots Of our indus
trial progress with iron. Even at such
great distances. 70 hare brought the iron
and coal togeth1xaaDa Ave made ourselves
the greatest iron manufacturers of the
world. A little over ten years ago Great
Britain produced ten times as much pig
iron as we did. We caught up to her in
$780, and We now beat her in the produc-
tion of both iron and steel l have only the
figures of 1892 before me- In that year
and every year since then we have led the
world in these respects. In 1892 we made
more than one-fourth of all the iron and
steel in the world, and Germany and Great
Britain Jagged far behind US on the metallic
road. Then the world produced 57OOO,UOO
tons of iron, and our share of this was over
16,OO0O0 tons. Our pig iron product that
year was worth more than all our gold and
silver.
Where the Worlds Iron Comes From.
There is no doubt that we are 20 furnish
the greater part Of the iron for the world
in the future. We have bigger ore beds
than any other country and our coal fields
are practically inexhaustible. There is
enough coal in Alabama to do all the man.
ufacturing of the United States for many
years to come. l was told at Bessemer that
the available coal of Alabama alone If it
could be put into lump would make a
solid chunk seventy miles long by sixty
miles broad, and ten feet thick Such a
lump would, 1t Is estimated, furnish ten
thousand tons Of coal a day for more than
eleven thousand years, or a million tons
day for 115 years. But Alabama has
only small amount of the great Appala-
chan coal fields. These fields end some
where in Alabama. They run from there
nine hundred miles. and they are from
thirty to one hundred and eighty miles
wide. They furnish about two-thirds of all
our bitrminous coal output. and We pro-
duce. you know. about one-third of all the
coal Of the world. In 1894 we mined 10
million tons OF coal, while the whole world
produced only SO million tons. The only
country which beat us that year was Great
Britain. We have thousands of square
miles of coal lands outside Of the Ap2a-
lachian fields, and there are great unde-
velcped coal areas in the west. / was told
Of great iron mountain which is to be
oreL ed by railroad from Salt Lake City
to Los Angeles during my stay in Utah,
and there are large iron deposits in Mis-
souri,. Today the leading countries of the
world which produce iron are Great Brit
ain, Germany, France, Austria Hungary,
Russia. Belgium and Sweden. Spain mines
a great deal OF iron ore. but she ships the
MT st Of 1t to England. I heard Of big un-
developed iron mines in China during my
stay there, and there are some good mines
in Mexico and Central America. There is
oEe iron region In Cuba and you find small
beds scattered throughout the West India