The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1900-02-20
UNITED STATES NOW
FIRST IN THE RACE
GROWTH OF ITS IRON AND
STEEL INDUSTRY.
MI. Charles H. Cramp Gives Some
Interesting Facts, which Show
That the English and German
Shipyards Bust Come to This
Country as Purchasers of Raw Ma
terial and That Germany Will in
Time Equal Great Britain as a
Maritime Power.
From Letter in the Washington Post.

From a Letter in the Washington Post.
The statistics of iron and steel pro-
duction and of the corrclativc output
of ore, coal and coke exhibit that the
United States began to range up along
side of Great Britain IL; 1889; that be-
tween that year and 1896 there was a
close race, with sometimes one and
sometimes the other slightly in the
lead that in 1S9! the United states
passed Great Britain by a million tons
In output of pig iron. and that in 1898
the lead was by nearly two and half
million tons in favor ofthe United
States, the totals for that year bcin.,
11,1730 00G tons for this country as
against 9,342,0O0 tons for Grea; Britain.
The output of the United States for
the first half of 1884 was 2>9,O00 tons,
which indicates Il total for the year
of about 12,5C0,00o tons. Complete
British statistics for the first half of
1899 are not accessible, but enough is
known to Justify an estimate for the
whole year but little II any in excess
of 1SoS-say. o.50O.O06 tons. This would
put the United states in the lead foe
the year 1899 by the enormous amount
of 3.000,000 tons, or a ratio OF excess
over Great Britain equal to 3t1s per
cent
This lead can never be broken. The
economic laws that produced it mus.
continue to operate, and their oper-
alton must tend always to widen the
gap never to close or even lessen it.
For several years Prof. Goodwin
Smith has periodically announced the
attainment by England Of her climax
rs the supreme power among nations.
Various causes have from time to time
operated to postpone the actual verin-
cation of the professors theory: and
ii Is within the range, of possibility
that the iron and steel product for 1898
or 1899 may be slightly exceeded in the
future. Be this as It may one ele-
ment at least Of Prof. Smiths doleful
prophecy has at last become an es-
tablirhed fact. namely, that England
has been. by the advance of the United
States, permanently relegated to the
second place as n producer OF iron and
steel.
BASIC INDUSTRY OF ALL.
1t will. l think. be conceded without
argument that the production of iron
and steel is. under modern conditions,
the basic industry of all. and that the
tendency in every direction is to en-
phasize that fact more and more year
by wear. 1t is not necessary to ad-
duce particulars in veritication Of this
great fact. Suffice to say that all
traffic BY land is now done on steel
roads. all traffic by sea in steel ships,
all fabrics are made by steel and iron
machines, and that the affairs of liz
dustry and commerce are day by day
more and more transacted in steel
buildings.
From this point of view and with.
ont minifying the importance of any
other industry. it is not too much to
say that the capacity to produce iron
and steel has become the gauge Or
standard of national supremacy; and
that the iiNity or pernianency of that
standard is already Settled beyond per-
adventure.
Having seen that the United States
stands at the head of nations in the
primary industry of modern civiliza-
tion, and that no possible combination
of events can ever disturb that supre-
macy, we may now turn briefly TO
considerations of the comlonentS or
the natural bases of that supremacy
in the raw or primary condition.
The foundation OF steel and iron pro-
ductiun is, of course, coal and iron
ore.
In the case of the United states to
coal may be added. to limited extent,
however. and thus far quite localized
natural gas.
However. for general purposes it is
I, u-I, A.. .nnSiIar
prime elements, coal and iron ore; and
in this competition the coal element
must be limited /" thu kind Of that
material suitable for cooking or gas
producing.
The total area of British coal fields,
and it may be said that there is no
undevcloped coal area remaining in
Great Britain. is o,3C0 square miles,
all the British coal area, or at least
so nearly all that the residue is not
worth mentioning, Is suitable for cox
ing or gas-prOducing: particularly in
view of the latest approved processes
known as the Otto Hoffman and th.
Semit-Solvay.
COAL AREA OF UNITED STATES.
The grand total coal area Of tho
l
1917 900 square miles. This means only
the areas where coal has actually been
deyelopcd by sinking shafts in greater
or less number in each coal belt
But of this vast area not all Is sus-
ceptible of the uses of iron and steel
production.
Tho United States geological survey
gives LOO as the square mileage ot
anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania
which, of course. must be excluded.
A great part of the far western coal
areas may also be excluded from the
ircn and steel making category, the
coal deposits in that region being forms
of Ignite in greater or less stages of
development, but not up to the point
| of coking or gas-producing.
Making the most liberal allowances
| for all these deductions, it Is sufficient
| for the purpose of this paper to say
| that the coal area of the United States
| known or developed wholly or in part
| which bear coking or gas-producing
| coal is considerably more than 10000
| square miles.
The vertical extent or in other
| words, the depth of these deposits as
compared with those of Great Britain,
are at this time Understandable for
| the reasons that they have nowhere
been worked to the point of exhaustion
or driven TO such depths as 10 render
| the hosting of the product nearly or
! quite unpron able, which Is beginning
| To be the case in certain parts of the
| British coal fields.
on the whole. ii is safe to say that
| the coking or gas-produclng areas of