The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-04-16
BALTIMORE PARTY
 NOW IN THE CITY Directors in Ala. Consolidated Inspect Co.'s Properties ARE VERY MUCH PLEASED Members of Party See Wonderful Growth In Birmingham Since Last vislt-Edmonds Discusses
 Mineral Development.
ARE VERY MUCH PLEASED

A party of prominent Baltimorean in- cluding Douglas H. Gordon, S. C. Row land, William c. seddon Charles T. Westcott and Richard H. Edmonds, ed.- tor of the Manufacturers Record, are registered at the IIillman. These gentle men are directors in the Alabama Con- solidated Coal and Iron company and came to make an inspection of the com pany's properties in the Birmingham dis trict They dined last night with Col. T. G. Bush, president of the Alabama Con- solidated, at his home on Highland ave- nue.
 Each of the visitors expressed himself delighted with the progress of Birming- ham, and noted especially the wonderful growth of the city since their last visit a year ago. The party will return to Balti- more tonight
 The Plant.
 Yesterday evening MT. Edmonds said;
 The directors of the Alabama Consoli- dated Coal and Iron company are simply making their annual trip to Birmingham to look over the properties of the com nany This morning was spent examining the company's big furnace at Gadsden, which was completed and blown in last fall. This furnace. which is one of the largest and best equipped plants in the state, and one of the few furnaces in the south using the skip hoist system for filling, is making an average of 200 tons a day of high grade iron. It nas made as much as 275 tons in day.
 
 ming mainly on brown ore. are averaging a total output of about 250 tons a day, of which over 99 per cent is foundry Iron. The total output of the company Is now about 450 to 800 tons of Iron a day and about 12.000 tons week of coal'
 Alabama Development.
 Commenting on the general develop ment of the coal and iron industry of the United States MT. Edmonds remarked:
 'It is an interesting fact that Ala bama Is now making twice as much iron and mining more than twice as much bituminious coal as the United States made of the one and mined of the other in 1860. In that year the total output of pig iron for the whole country was about iNN,VvV tohSt Niliic <AidDdihd lS uOW IHdk- ing 100000 tons a year. and the output of bituminious coal then was 5,700.000 tons as compared with Alabama's present pro- duction of 11,O0O000 tons.
 Even as late as 1880 the bituminous coal production of the United States was but 100000 tons, while last year the south mined 62.00oo00 tons. The country then consumed about three-fourths of a ton of bituminous coal per capita, where- as its annual consumption Is now nearly four tons per capita
 Pig iron consumption goes on with al- most equal rapidity, the output nearly doubling every decade for the last half a century. With a population of So,O0O, 900 people, increasing every ten years by about 20,00000O, it is quite certain that the increase in iron and coal output will keep on at about the same rate as in the past.
 This would give us ten years hence 450. 000 to 500 900, 900 tons of coal a year, against 3O0,00O,000 tons or more of iron against about IS, 900, 900 last year.
 These stupendous figures give assur- ance of an ever increasing value to all good coal and iron properties and of un- bounded prosperity to the iron regions of the south and necessarily to Alabama, as the central point of southern iron ad- vance,"
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