The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1902-12-31
FROM the phlladelphia Record.


The blast furnace which might almost
be denominated the key to the iron and
steel industry has Of late years been
passing through an evolution and de-
velopment in character and methods of
operation which bids fair to take 1t out
Of all semblance of its former self. 1t
is generally admitted that in no other
branch of the Industrial world has the
march of progress been SO rapid during
the past half century as in iron and steel
making, and 1t verify seems as though
the achievements of modern inventive
genius have reached a climax in provid-
ing time-saving, labor-saving and money
saving devices for contributing to the
economy and adding to the output of
these fountain-heads of the most useful
of metals.
That there should be a concentration
of new up-to-date and often revolution
airy influences at this point is but natu-
raj, since the blast furnace marks the
parting Of the ways for the various forms
of iron and steel. Whether the ultimate
form of the weighty material be a costly
steel armor plate or merely a crude iron
casting, the foundation substance has en-
anated from the great towering struc-
ture known as the blast furnace, and
thus all the various branches of the me-
tai trades and all kindred interests are
directly DESTROYS of inventinos and dis
coveries that will affect favorably their
common source of supply.
To appreciate what has lately been ac-
complished in this wonderful domain it
is but necessary to indulge in a momen-
tary mental review of the conditions of
a few years since. Indeed, there are still
in use examples of the old stone furnaces
fed by large forces of woodcutters, and
there has yet been but a partial displace-
ment of those blast furnaces, which,
while resembling in external appearance
the latest type Of structure. necessitated
feeding by hand, as 1t were. In those
olden furnaces the iron ore, coke and
limestone was loaded in wheelbarrows
and carried to the top Of the great tubu-
lar caldron by means of an elevator and
was poured into the molten pool below
by workmen, who, whenever the "belr'
at the top of the furnace opened, braved
the Dangers of the leaping flames and the
rush of poisonous gases, to say nothing of
other menaces which confronted them
whenever an explosion caused an upheav-
al of the lava-lilke mass and hurled the
gigantic lid of the furnace into the air.
This plan of operation was costly In
xfo1 md
the substitution of a new and improved
method of procedure constitutes one of
the greatest of the latter-day achieve
ments In the iron working field. At the
present time very little manual labor is
utilized in the feeding of a blast fur
mace. The cars of iron ore, coke and
limestone are, upon arrival at the fur
mace yard, transferred to ingenious car
dumping machines, each Of which can in
the space of a minute upturn a loaded
railroad car, emptying the contents into
the small cars which are to convey 1t to
the top of the furnace, and returning
the empty railroad car to the track.
Instead of the old creaking elevator,
with its loaded wheelbarrows carrying
fuel and iron ore to the flame-enveloped
workers at the top of the giant melting
| pot, the up-to-date blast furnace has
what is known as the furnace hoist and
stock distributor, one of the most won
derful inventions of that talented en-
gineer, Mr.. Fayette Brown. The fur
mace hoist consists primarily of double
track incline railway reaching from the
ground to the top of the furnace, and UP
and down which travel the cars laden
with ore and limestone and coke. Al
the top of the furnace the track Is Sc
| arranged that the contents OF the car
.inn1l,r d11nnnnd into the hon