The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-06-02
Work OF Science
in SfeeI-MdkinQ
From the New York Sun.

From the New York Sun.
m WAS estimated fifteen years ago
ii that the annual world average of
| the consumption of iron and steel
was 1898 pounds per head. At that
time the people Of Great Britain
were consuming 2SI5S pounds per
head every year, those of the United
Staes 27O.92 pounds, the inhabitants
of South America only 1875 pounds,
while in Egypt the amount fell
to 7.55 pounds, in British India to "A
pounds, and in the remainder of Asia
to less than half pound. The lowest
average for any European country was
% pounds per head. 1t was said at the
annual meeting of the British Iron and
Steel Institute, early this month, that
the consumption per capita in Great
Britain had somewhat increased and was
|probably about 800 pounds. Satisfac-
tory statistics as 10 the present con-
sumption per capita in the United States
are not available, as nine years have
elapsed since our census was taken: but
with the large increase in our use of iron
in shipbuiding, water and gas pipes, tele-
graph wires, wire fences and ropes or
cables, and the development of our
great machinery and tin plate industries.
IL is probable that we have at least kept
pace with Great Britain in the utilization
Of iron and its products, even If we have
made little advance upon our earlier con-
sumption for railroads and their equip
ment. In total consumption we surpass
all other countries. The United States
and Great Britain are far in the lead.
chiefly because they use so much iron
and steel in railroads and their appli-
ances, machinery and shipbuilding.
-:O:-
The greatest fact relating to the de-
velopment of iron and steel making is
that science has guided every step and
n htn a Gi n n a M
provement and growth The knowledge
of fifty years ago in respect TO metallurgy
seems primitive in comparison with the
enlightenment of today. Only forty
years ago the British board of trade
refused to permit the use OF steel IN
the building of the bridge across the
Thames at Charing Cross. Earlier than
thirty years ago those who had applied
science to the iron and steel industries
received scant courtesy from the capt.
talists who owned the manufacturing
plants. AS Sir William Roberts-Austen
showed in his presidential address, the
other day, many inventors were meanly
treated and "Bessemer's early statements
were received with contempt as we'll as
inCredulity." But 1t has been the disCoV-
cry and cheapening of every scientific
process that now enters into the mining
OF ore, its conversion into iron, and the
conversion of iron into steel and steel
use, that make the pre-emlnence of this
age of steel and enable this country to
compete with any other in its iron and
steel products.
-:O:-
We hear now of blast furnaces that
produce 100 tons of iron a day. of OPEN
hearth furnaces fed with a ton of mate
rial a minute, Of enormous mixers that
hold 200 tons of pig iron, of rolled steel
plate two inches thick and over 800
square feet in area, of steel plates that
buckled up in a collision but remained
watertight, and of girders justifying the
| belief that bridges may yet be built, IL
desired, in half-mile spans. All these
wonders are the achievements that SCI
entihc workers have made possible by
years OF research and experiment In the
comparative quiet Of the laboratory. The
study OF alloys, OF the Elasticity and
other properties of steel, of the use Of
| electricity in riveting hardened ship
plates that otherwise could not be drilled.
! and many other complex problems, have
resulted in brilliant triumphs for the
chemist and physicist.