The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-01-03
WRITES IF SOUTH'S
 IRON ORE DEPOSITS
President of Tennessee Co, Con-
 tributes Signed Article
THIS STATES RESOURCES
Mir. Bacon Gives Some Interesting Sta tstics and Points Out Birmingham Districts Great Advantages.
 Future Development.

Among the industrial feature articles in the Louisville Courier-Journals New Years edition was this signed contribu- ton by Don H. Bacon, president of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad com pany:
 In considering the iron ore resources of the south, and the possible future man ufacture of pig iron, it will perhaps be well to include only Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama, furnaces in those states being wholly dependent upon home ores.
 In 1908 the product of the Tennessee mines was 852704 tons; the product Of the Georgia mines 442960; of the Ala bama mines s,sS4,9eO, making total of 4,9s1. .11s tone. Tennessee produced in 1904 5OO,9S2 tons; Georgia, 2ss,SO2; Alabama B. 699 ,sS1, or a total of 4,494, 665 tons.
 The product of Tennessee and Georgia being less in 1904 than in 1903 is in no measure due to exhaustion of the de- posits. as there Is good reason to be- lieye that these states can make larger outputs than heretofore, as many of the deposits have not been systematically worked and often abandoned before they were exhausted. Deposits of ore fre- quently do not show at the surface of the ground, but by thorough explorations many will be discovered, the existence of which is not now suspected. With bet ter methods of mining and washing, those states can be expected to furnish large quantities of ore for many years. The large deposits of red ore in the vicinity of Birmingham, Ala, have made that state the largest producer of ore and pig iron of any in the south, and in speaking of southern iron interests reference is usually had to the Birmingham district.
 The Birmingham District.
 Only within the last few years has a systematic effort been made by furnace companies in the Birmingham district to improve their coal and ore mining meth ods. to duplicate the best blast furnaces of other districts, to adopt the labor-sav- ing appliances that have been tried out elsewhere, and thus to make more certain a return on their investments. The re- suits of these efforts are already appar- ent in the decreased cost of ore, the de- creased coke consumption. the increased output of the furnaces and the decreased cost of the product. Important changes being made in the equipment and man. ner of working some of the coal mines have been completed in but one instance, but the results at that mine are such to encourage like changes at other mines. Tn considering the possibilities of this district they should be measured with those of some other district. A com parison, therefore, of the tons of ore that are known to lie within a short dis tance of Birmingham with the tons of ore that have been shipped from Lake Superior may be instructive.
 From 1856 Gin which year the first ship ments of iron ore were made from Lake Superior) to January 1, 1905, 265,696,S59 tons were mined, shipped and smelted at fur naces between the Atlantic on the east and St. Louis on the west Disinterested investigators have reported that the ton mage of Iron ore, of such quality as Is now being mined and smelted successful ly, owned by three of the Birmingham companies, exceeds in units of iron con- tained in the shipments from Lake Su- perior mentioned above.