The age-herald., 1899-11-05

blooming mill, to a section inches square at which point, still bright red hot, 1t is switched into runaway or chute, and sent sliding down into the works of the Ala bama Steel and Wire company, where it is successiVely reduced into wire rods, and then drawn out into wire, or, as advisable, cut into wire nails, or woven into wire fence
 Now, notice and see the economies of modern science when controlled by ade- quate capital; there has not one hand touched this material, this combination of iron and carbon since by the light of an oil lamp hanging from the cap, the min CT in the depths loaded the iron ore and another one the coal, into tram cars under ground. From that moment, until the com pletion of the finished product, the hand ling has been automatic, by machinery or other appliances; and note further, that with the exception of the original six miles of switching from the ore mine to the fur mace, there has not been a movement be- tween the ore and wire nail, of over 400 yards. This is something that cannot be matched anywhere in the entire world, which is perhaps a startling statement, but it Is true, and 1t is for the sake of gfv- dng the readers of the Times-Democrat in- formation as ito what is doing in the neigh borhood of Alabama, that this article is written. It is the marvellous contiguity Of ma terials which has enabled the state of Alabama to obtain its prominence of to- day; and what is that prominence? It Is that which appertains to the producer of a cheap, everyday article like pig iron at a figure that will enable it to be laid down in every state and territory of the United States, lin Canada and Mexico, In England, Scotland and Ireland in France, Belgium and Holland, up the cold waters of the Bal tlc to Sweden and Finland, up the green waters of the Rhine to Germany and Switzerland and down the blue waters and under the blue skies of the Mediterranean to Spain, southern France, Italy and Aus tria, and furthermore, across the equator, and around the Horn, or past the cape, 10 Japan, China and India.
 ''Tlhis remarkable company, whose stock was at 1T when Dewey smote the Spanlsh fleet, and is now in the sos, produces more coal and more pig iron than all the other coal producers and iron producers an the state of Alabama combined, so that it has no rival in the south.
 '.It supplies such systems as the Louls- vile and Nashville, the Southern, the Ala bama Great Southern, the Illinois central the Mobile and Ohio, the Southern Paclnc, the Texas Pacific, and scores or smaller railroads with their fuel for the movements of trains; steamships at New Orleans Pen saeola, Mobile, Charleston and Port Royal get their bunker supplies from 1t; railroads in Mexico bring its black diamonds by barge to Pensacola or Mobile; other blast furnaces owe their existence sometimes to it's surplus coke product beyond its own requirements; and rolling mills and foun- dries cotton mills and wooden mills, oil mills gas works, and water works, from Nashville Tenn, to New Orleans, inclu- sive always rely upon the supplies of coal from this great corporation, so as to in- sure the regular operation of their works. Its iron product goes everywhere The cast iron pipe foundries of Bessemer, An niston, Cincinnati, Louisville and Phila- delphia; the soil pipe foundries from Gads- den and Baltimore to Milwaukee and New York; the enameled bath tubs of New York city and of Louisville; the stoves of Detroit St. Louis and Keokuk, of Albany and Troy; the radiators of Chicago; the car castings of Pullman, JeffersOnville and Michigan City; the bar iron of Brazil, Ind, and Terre Haute and Muncie, and Harris burg, Pa, are leading opponents of the universalfty of its sales, whilst its basic metal, sold on a guaranteed analysis for steel making, goes to the steel works in Pittsburg Chicago, Cleveland, O., St. Louis, Muncie, Elmira, N. Y, Pencoyd Pa. Germany, Russia and Italy. Who can follow it's use from these points? Ship plates, bridge material structural steel, stamped and enameled ware, tin plates and possibly into armor plates.
 ''The steel works at Ensley, just refer