The evening times., 1899-09-26
AN AMERICAN INDUSTRY.
Development of One of Canada,
LnrEest Enterprises.


Largest Enterprises.
United States capital and enterprise, -
says Consul Brush, of Niagara Falls, On
tario, in letter to the State Department.
ARE developing on of the largest indus
trial movements ever undertaken in Can
ada, representing s20.OoO,O 600. The organi-
zation is known as the Dominion Iron and
Steel Company and is projected by H. NJ.
Whitney, of Boston. The new company is
formed by the amalgamation of the Cape
Breton Coal Company and the Ferrona
Steel Company, Of New Glasgow, Nova
Scotia, and has under its control a vast field
of Hematite ore, all the available Cape
Breton coal mines, and all the Sydney lime
stone quarries.
"The presence of iron in Bell Island, New
foundland was first discovered in 1915, but
it was only in 1892 that it was known to be
of commercial value. The Ferrona Steel
Company bought the tract in 1893 for $780,
900. Last spring it was sold to the Whit
ney syndicate for 81 900, 900. Development
Of the ore field has led to such valuable dis
coveries that the company has been reor-
ganiZed on a much larger basis than was at
first contemplated and the industry will be
rapidly developed into one of the largest
Iron and Steel enterprises in the world.
The present output is $500 tons of ore a
day. The plan outlined by the syndicate
provides for an output of 10000 tons OF
ore month and its conversion into iron
and steel ready for shipment.
This mine is unique in it's way: there
is no other like it, it is said, in the world.
II i- bod of
300 feet wide and some three miles long,
and all the labor required is to blast it
with dynamite and shovel it into cars. The
natural formation of the deposit is, how
ever, its chief claim to note. 1t is made
up of innumerable rectangu ar blocks of
ore, set together in almost horizontal stra-
Ia, like bricks in a wall or tiles in a pave
ment, and cemented into a solid mass by
some gigantic pressure eXerted countless
ages ago. The bed is covered with de-
posit of soil some ten feet thick, and when
this is stripped off the horizontal face OF
the section resembles nothing so much as a
level tiled floor, the lines OF junction of
the countless pieces composing it being
distinctly visible. A later view of the see
tion shows the different strata piled on
top of each other with mathematical pre-
cision. Steam drills work holes down.
wards into the floor; dynamite cartridges
are bedded therein and exploded by cleo
, tricity and this force rends asunder large
sections of the bed, the stock serving also
to dismember the mass into its host of
component cubes or block. These are
shoveIed by the workmen into the waiting
cars which are presently on the first stage
of their Quincy to the smelling works.
Careful estimates place the amount of
ore already available at 35.000,000 tons.
The cost Of mining up to date has aver
aged only 20 cents a ton. The gravity
system is used throughout, and the ore is
carried from a great reservoir on the cliff
into the steamer hold for one-ffth OF a
cent ton. There Is but one other de-
posit of hematite ore in the world like
this Newfoundland field. and 1t is in Ala
bama. 1t Is an inland deposit, however,
with no water transportation. In addi-
tion to the natural advantages, the Do
minion Government grants bounty of 81
ton on iron smelted in Canada and s. a
ton on steel"