The age-herald., 1899-01-17
GOSSIP AND WONDERS
 OF PIG IRON

were getting S75 ton for pig iron, and sales agents champagne bills were marked 0. R. promptly at the furnace office and no questions asked. At that time hard coal was $7 a ton. Twenty-Five years ago I was sales agent of pig iron and nails. We did not go about drumming up trade. I went to the Astor House in New York; having sent out advance notices to iron buyers, and they came to see me. It was a social affair primarily, on the surface. One case or a dozen cases of champagne; it did not mat ter The trade had to be looked after and cared for. When the social feature of the meeting was ending orders were taken for iron and nails, and thus pleasure was com bined with business. When the expense &C., count was audited at the home office there might be some scratching of the head if the more sedate and conservative man of the house was looking over the hotel bills, but 1t all went.
 "Yes, those were great days have just had run through the iron country of the cast and l noted a great many more changes in the trade with pig iron at $1O and S11 a ton. Twenty-Five years ago a blast furnace product of 300 tons of pig iron a week was huge. Now big furnace turns out 300 tons a day, and the improved ma- chinery enables them to extract every pound of metal from the ore which was not the case a quarter of a century ago. After the big blast furnaces get through with ore nowadays 1t is of no use to try to work the cinder over again in the hope of making the reworkng of it pay. Some old cinder banks be worked at a profit, but such cinder is from old charcoal fur naces. These old affairs are all being aban- doned. I could name dozens of them that have been dismantled in the east, especially in the iron country of Pennsylvania. They could not compete with the giant struc- lures turning out 5000 tons of iron a week and selling it at $9 and $10 a ton. Charcoal as a fuel is nearly a thing of the past in this age of steel. Coke is the fuel The great steel companies own big blast fur naces located near immense deposits of iron ore. Among the places visited was the Cornwall ore hills in Lebanon county, Pa. For century and half they have been taking out thousands of tons of ore a week, and the deposit is practically without limit today. Probably dozen big blast furnaces near these ore hills are going day and night turning out pig iron. There is railroad Car ldLllue Just HOW dI all eastern SnlpDl1lR points, Empty cars are scarce. Shipping men say they have stacks of orders for empty cars which they cannot supply. There is a saying just now in the iron country that they are shipping pig so fast and so hot that it is wonder the metal does not burn the cars.
 q came across furnaces that ten years ago had capacity of 300 tons week. Now they turn out 1,2OO tons week. So prodigi- ously have things been improved and en- larged that there are new furnaces with a capacity of 300 tons a day, and two are building with double that capacity, or 1 ,0) or 1,2O0 tons day. One furnace was in the employ of particular ore franchise. An ancient legal right was that as long as wa ter flows and grass grows that furnace was to have as much ore, free of charge, as it could smelt It was then making, say 200 tons a week. By modern appliances and new inventions the company so improved that ore furnace as to be able to turn out 1,2OO tons a week. The courts were appeal ed to by the owners of the ore banks, who said that to supply enough ore for this fur mace was out of all reason, and that the original grant never contemplated such a tremendous consumption of ore. After a long legal fight the court decided that free ore was to be furnished to that one furnace, no matter how much it consumed, and that decision stands today.
 Il have heard it stated that some of these immense furnaces having cheap ore, lime stone and coke can produce pig metal at. say, S6 ton first cost. Some have figured 1t little. closer, but you can rest assured that the od-time way of selling the produc- tion, with champagne for the agent thrown in, has passed away, probably forever. Of course, sales agents are still sociable and entertaining, but the feature I have above referred to is not now in vogue. Commits sion houses now handle iron. Big rail or structural mills take all the product of several furnaces Large pipe mills, like the rail mills, consume the output of their own furnaces.
 "If we take notice of the production of nearly a million tons of pig metal in the United States for every month in 1898, or. say, 11500,OOO tons for the year, we naturally wonder who uses all this iron. The -recent order for 0O,00O tons of steel rails for foreign account is very en- couraging, but that is hardly one-ffth of the metal that Is being produced in month in this country. When We think of mil- lion tons of iron month that means some- thing. Six years ago the United States produced 16250,000 tons of iron ore a year. The production now must be nearer 25, 5,000,- GOO tons.
 ''In 1898 our production of pig iron was at high-water mark The furnaces out of blast have supposed capacity of about 4.- 900 tons more year. but they are mostly small, old style, and cannot be worked at a profit unless iron is away up in price. Of course the giant furnaces now going up in Ohio and at Chicago. Reading and other points will increase materially the output of 1899, if the demand warrants. The fur had to wait 6IlI until 1898 brought them business boom. It may and likely will continue in 1899 Our exports in plates. shapes water pipe barb ed wire and other manufactured iron and steal help to answer the question what he- comes of tho vast heaps of iron turned out in the United States. And the year 1Se9 will show such increased figures in the output that the inquiry will be still more emphatic, what becomes of all our iron? The expan- sion of the area of our country and its in- fuence: the development of a colonial trade: our getting into foreign markets hv o Sr1nnrior utiaIitr of CONde