The age-herald., 1899-03-14
THE SOUTHERN PIrTsDURG

Correspondence of the Imley City, Mich,
 Times.
 Our first stop was at the iron mines. mines We ever saw, as the mining is most all done on the surface. The mountains. this particular chain at least, seems to be solid iron for they have sunk shafts down 800 feet and found nothing but solid iron ore all the way. The range Is about twenty miles long. The ore is mostly red hem- atite, although there are few places where brown hematite is mined. The ore is 66 per cent. pure. It is softer ore than our Lake Sueprior article.
 The miners blast the rock with dyna- mite and then break it up into a con- venient size for handling; they work in pairs generally, and are paid so much car. The mine we visited pays 9 cents a train car load, and the negroes-they are all negroes except the foreman-get out anywhere from twelve to twenty cars per day to each pair, and none of them are blessed with supera bundance or this ar- tice.
 After car is full 1t is started down the track to a crusher, where it is converted into still smaller pieces, and pours out of the spout into the ore cars and hauled only few miles away to the furnace, where it is made into pig iron. It is then ready for shipment to any part of the world, there to be converted into the thousand and one articles modern civiliZati tion calls for. The most of it is manufactured into something useful in and around Birmingham, now eyer
 We next visited Bessemer, one of Bir- mingham's manufacturing suburbs. Hero we went through large iron pipe foundry. a branch of the American Pipe and Foun- dru nv hDi iG thousand tons a day. They manufacture pipe from inches to 72 inches in diameter. fine writer has often wondered just how large iron piping was cast, so the process was a most interesting one to us. We doubt if we can describe the process so that 1t would be intelligible to our readers. but here goes: The cases are taken and wound with twisted hay, then covered with a coating of mud that is evenly put on while the core Is revolving. This clay is ground up to the consistency of paste In big mortars, and is applied to the cores covered with hay by the hands. The cores are then rolled to the main building, through the center of which extends series of pits. In these immense pits are the "outside" cores standing on end An immense crane swings around to where the inside" core lays, chains are made fast to each end, it is raised and then lowered into position and the same thing gone through with until all are filled. The molten metal is then poured in. The intense heat burns the hay and this gives the space needful to pull out the completed pipe.
 Our next stop was at Ensley, where tho extensive furnaces are. An immense steel plant is now in process of erection ttere which will be in running order in about year. It is estimated that about 5000 men will then be at work there, and about s6,- 900 900 capital invested. A ladle holding l50 tons will then carry the molten iron direct from the furnaces to the steel mill, where it will be turned into steel.
 The next and last stop was at inex- haustible lime quarries. But a few miles away are large deposits of coal. The cas- ual observer will at once notice that Bir- mingham, Ala, is most advantageously situated for the manufacture of iron, hav- ing all the necessary ingredients that enter into its manufacture within few miles Of each other, thus saving the heaviest item of expense, railroad transportation. There is also a superior quality of clay found there for making brick. Thus it wiil be seen that nature has done. much. in fact she could hardly do more, towards making Birmingham large manufacturing cen- ter. It has already become noted all owed the civilized world, and will doubtless double it's population every decade for some time to coma -