The age-herald., 1901-09-15
...NeW Blast Furnace. :.
MACHINE HANDLES METAL FROM MINE TO MILL.


From the Chicago Tribune.
 Itsis no longer necessary for human ' beings to sweat their lives away turning the iron ore of the mountain into the iron pigs of commerce. The man with to be factor in the complicated machin- cry that runs a modern blast furnace Since the first furnace was fired his labor has been Indispensable; when he ceased to work the furnaces did not pour. Then invention stepped in and wiped his name from the pay rolls.
 Unthinlxing creatures of iron and steel, with cogwheel brains and members that are limited to a single function, untiring, never perspiring, and without ambition beyond the performance of the particular duties for which they were nodded and cast, have taken his place, at least, so far as modern furnaces are concerned. They do this wheelbarrow mans work in less time, with more accuracy, and at much less expense. They belong to no labor union, and they never strike. except for a just ration of oil or from absolute mis- treatment.
 New Furnace Wonder.
 Of course. a blast furnace has not yet been perfected to such degree that 1t can be planted in the midst of a forty acre lot and be left to run itself. Man still plays his part in the smelting opera Ition. He touches buttons, loosens the giant strength of electricity; he pulls hy- draulic levers and turns steam valves; but no longer does he toll in the original meaning of the word.
 A good demonstration of these facts is to be found in the new blast furnace which Joseph Wharton has just built at Port Dram. N. J., and which was "blown in" the other day, It is the newest blast furnace in the world, and 1t makes a nearer approach to mechanical perfection than any other. All of the skill of the best inventors has been drawn on to per feet the works, and the result Is wonder full.
 One who attempts to describe the new Port Dram furnace has valid excuse for over working the word automatic. It Is the one word in Webster that accurately sums up the working of the furnace. The mind of the man planned the whole. but his hand directs the work, but machinery does the rest.
 Automatic From Mine to Mill.
 From the time the iron ire leaves the mines, twelve miles back in the Jersey hills sometimes called mountains by those who have never seen the Rockies 1t is not touched by human hand until it lies a molten mass at the bottom of the fur mace. The same is true of the coke, coal and limestone used in smelting The doors of the furnace are opened by pull ing lever, and the smelted ore, without handling, finds its way through a series of stages until 1t Is pushed by machinery into flat cars, finisheds clean-cut pigs, ready for the rolling mill use. The en- tire process from mire to rolling mill is automatic.
 The ore used at Port Dram comes from the Wharton mines at Hibernia- Miners shovel 1t into big 'skips," which ha up the mine slope and dump it automat- ically into a conveyor. Machinery pushes 1t into the hopper of a powerful crusher, and then carries the crushed ore to a magnetic separator. Another conveyor takes the ore to storage bins which are tapped by chutes from below. In this way the Wharton steel ore cars can be filled without handling to their fifty-ton limit The cars are pulled, by a locomo- tive over the old Morris County Railroad,