The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-05-16
BIRMINGHAM RAILS
 MUCH DISCUSSED Big Sale Means Much for the
 District EFFECT IS FAR REACHING Richard H. Edmonds Gives Out Inter- view In Order to Accentuate Im- portance of sale-Potential-
 tiles of open-Hearth.
EFFECT IS FAR REACHING

Nothing has been so widely discussed is iron and steel circles recently as the Tennessee company's sale of 10000 tons of rails to the Hartman system. Rich ard II. Edmonds, editor of the Baltimore Manufacturers Record, gives out the fol- lowing interview:
 This is the most important movement ever made, so far as it's worldwide infiu- ence is concerned, in attracting attention to the iron and steel interests of Ala bama For many years 1t was claimed by northern iron people that Birmingham would not be able to become a great steel producer, but that its metallurgical inter- ests would be confined to the making of pig iron. When the basis rail was first introduced there was some question as to whether basic steel was equal in quality to the Bessemer steel. It Is now recog- nized that the basic rail is superior to the Bessemer rail, and so rapid has been the development of the basic steel indus try in the last few years that AT per cent of all the steel ingots and castings made in the United States last year were of open-hearth or basic production. the total of open-hearth or basic being 10, 970,OOO tons against 10,275,000 tons of the Bessemer product.
 "It is not alone in this country, but in Europe that the advance in basic steel industry is attracting great attention. Mir J. Stephen Jeans, secretary of the British Iron Trade associa ton, one of the most noted experts of the world in the London Iron and Coal Trades Review few weeks ago, commenting on this change from Bessemer to basic steel, said: The growth and the potentialities of the open-hearth rail output have one very important bearing on the rail trade-it places the rail pool in a far from impreg- nable position. There is no longer any limit to the number of outside competi- tors
 "So long as the Bessemer railmakers in the United States practically controlled this industry and the Bessemer ores on which it was founded there was com paratively little opportunity for broad development of the steel industry in the sonth, except through basic steel making, the southern ores being adapted for basic and not for Bessemer steel.
 Now that the world has come to rec ognize the superiority of the basic rail over the Bessemer rail, and that the suc- cess of the basic rail mill in Birming- ham has been followed by the building of a great basic rail plant at Bethlehem. and is being followed by the United States Steel corporation in building Its $75, 5,J0O0O0 steel plant at Gary, Ind, all question as to the future development of the southern steel industry has been set tied. It is now a matter only of energy and money ito bring about vast devei- opment-in the basis steel industry in the south rivaling the steel interests in the Pittsburg and Chicago districts.
 During the last two or three years in which the Tennessee company has been carrying on its basic railmaking opera tions at Birmingham it has been proving the quality of the basic rail- and for the last twelve months has been selling its rails st $29, or $1 a ton more than the price of Bessemer rails by the United States Steel corporation. During this time all tests which have been made have proved that the Birmingham made rall is one of the best if not the best made in the country, but heretofore most of these rails have been sold to southern roads. Now that the Hartman interests have made contract for 150000 tons for next years delivery, they have given to the Alabama steel industry an indorsement of worldwide importance. The contract price for these rails Is between $4,00O,0OO and $50O0,000 but as an advertisement pure and simple 1t is worth more to the south in attracting the worlds attention and capital to that section than would be the expenditure of S4,000, ,000 or $5,000,- GOO in any other way with which l am acquainted. This purchase by the Harri- mans must inevitably have very great influence in bringing about a more rapid investment of capital in iron and steel making in the south, and thus add to the prosperity of that section. With it's iron ores and it's coal almost within rifle shot of each other as compared with the Pittsburg district. to which the Lake Su perior ores have to be hauled 1000 to 150O miles, Alabama has advantages for iron and steel production not equaled else where in the United States, and, so far as I can learn, not equaled elsewhere in thn u nrld n