Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1899-02-23
PIG IRON AND PROSPERITY.

PIG IRON AND PRUSPEklIY.
There is no surer gauge of the pros.
perity of this country than that which
is furnished by pig iron statistics,
says the Washington Post. If our
gold and silver deposits were exhaust
ed, and mining for those metals were
abandoned, we should still have, in
our iron deposits, the solid basis of
enduring prosperity. If all the gold
and silver in the world should vanish
in a moment, their loss would not be a
permanently irreparable calamity, for
their places would be filled-the inge-
nuity of man could be trusted for that
But there is nothing that could be
made to serve the numberless uses of
iron. Next to food, clothing and fuel,
this is the one great requisite of civil
lization and PROCESS. And those sci
entistswhose inventions have facili-
tated the work of converting iron ores
into that product which we call steel
have been among the great test benefac-
tors of humanity.
1t is the belief of some of the most
learned metallurgists that pig iron will
soon be a thing of the past. They
look for the early coming of the time
when the ore will be directly convert
ed into steel without passing through
the blast furnace and coming out in
the crude molten mass that, on being
partly cooled, is broken into pigs. This
is not improbable, but it is unlikely
that steel will entirely supplant cast
iron, for the latter, even at equal or
greater cost, would be preferred for
some uses. AS there could be NO cast
iron if there were no pig, the contin-
uance of the present process, to a
greater or less extent, is practically
assured
The Philadelphia Record collates
pig iron statistics of recent and more
remote years in very interesting man
ner. Taking the product of 1888, which
was II 1890 gross tons, or nearly a
million tons a month, the Record
shows that this twas more than equal
to the entire production of pig iron in
the country during the ten years from
1854 to 1868 inclusive; it was greater
than the entire production in the five
years from 1875 to 1879 inclusive; it ex-
ceeded the entire production in the
two years 1885 and 1886, and it was 30
per cent more than the production in
1896, and 214 per cent more than the
production in 1897"
Coincident with this marvellous adj
vance, there has been very impor-
tant change affecting the consumption
of anthracite coal for blasting. The
Record shows that between 1856 and
1875 anthracite was the principal fuel
employed in smelling iron ores, but in
"the latter year the use OF bituminous
coal OF coke greatly increased, and no
little surprise was created in the iron
world when it was announced in 1875
that SAG, 022 tons of iron had been made
with bitGminous fuel, as compared
with S10,755 tons made with anthra-
cite Goals Ever since that date the
proportion of pig iron made with
bituminous coal or coke has been in
creasing. and in 1898 about 95 per
cent of the entire output was made
with coke produced from bituminous
COAL,
We think there must be an error in
the coke figures. There is large de.
post of soft coal in Indiana which,
being free from sulphur, is used in its
natural state for the manufacture of
pig iron. Probably that coal is counted
as coke in the Records figures.
Next to the character of our people
and the excellence of our plan of gov
eminent, the best guarantee we have
for future growth in wealth and power
is in our iron and coal. 1t is an in
controvertible title to the first place
in the world g commerce. All that we
have to do to realize this guaranty is to
deal justly with ourselves and with all
the members of the family of nations
In other words, we have only to pur
sue the same general policy of enter
prise and square dealing that has
brought US to our present high estate.