The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1900-11-23
ZINC SHIFTING INDUSTRY.
Engineering Journal Says Coal Must
Wait Until Natural Gas Com
pletely Played Out.

The last issue of the Engineering
and Mining Journal of New York, in
an exhaustive review of the future of
the smelling industry, says:
Certain commercial and technical
changes which are now taking place
in the American zinc industry are of
great Importance. One of these is the
predominance which the natural-gas
shelters of Kansas have gained over
those which are dependent on coal
fuel. The other istherapidly increas-
ing supply of Colorado zinc ore.
Both these developments affect the
zinc producers of the west rather than
those of the eastern and southern
states.
The chief points for smelling the
ore of the Joplin district used to be
Lasalle land Peruin illinois, st. Louis,
Mo-, and the vicinity of Pittsburg,
Kansas. Lasalle, Peru and st. Louis
twere zinc smelling centers before the
Joplin mines were worked for zinc.
Pittsburg, Kansas, owed its develop
ment to the productive coal measures
over which it is built, and being only
twenty-six miles from Joplin, with eX-
cellent railway connections, it became
naturally an advantageous place for
smelling the ore mined at and near
Joplin.
About five years ago the natural
gas supply in the vicinity of lola,
which by railway is approximately
100 miles from Joplin, began to be
used for zinc smelling and since then
numerous works have been erected at
that point. The experience has dem
onstrated that zinc ore can be smelted
more cheaply at lola, under the con-
ditions that exist there, than at Pitts
burg, Kansas, and gradually the coal
smelteries have been closed, though
this result did not take place in a
marked degree until the present year.
In 1899 the conditions of the ore and
spelter market were such that even the
lola smelters we're Improbable. With
1900 the unfavorable conditions we're
ameli orated, but increasing competi-
ton of the lola smelteries, of which
the largest had previously been con-
solidatediin strong hands, prevented
the price of ore from falling to former
level and few of the coal shelters of
Kansas and Missouri have been able
to meet recent prices, especially under
the further disadvantage of the in
creased price for coal which has pre-
vailed during the current year. That
the works at Joplin, Mo-, and Weir,
Kansas, have been closed, while out
of the five works at Pittsburg, only
one is at but half capacity. The coal
smelters of the Lasalle, Peru and ST.
Louis districts, however, because OF
the management and other advan.
tages, have been able to withstand the
competition of the lola works.
In tie closing ofthe Pittsburgwork'
and the others of which they are {
type, the metallurgical industry lose,
inasmuch as the irregular groups o
buildings, With their high peaked roo
and quaint gable-. and chimney
belching flames that made far-seer
land mark on the prairie at night
will soon become thing of the past
With idleness zinc smeltery rapid!
goes to pieces and probably the Pitts
burg works will never be started
again for any but spaSmodic cam
paigns In the ordinary course o
events the natural gas at lola and else
where will be exhausted some day anC
even before it is wholly consumed
will begin to assume an expense in
creasing gradually up to apointwher
it will be more costly than coal, an,
with the arrival of that time Pittsburi
may become a smelling center one
more, but it will be, no doubt, wit
new furnaces and new appliances.