The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-02-11
START FURNACE AT NORTH BIRMINGHAM No. 4 Will Be StarIed Next
 Monday RECENTLY PUT IN REPAIR Understood Republic Will Also Soon Start Second Furnace at Thomas. Material Signs of Industrial
 Improvement.
RECENTLY PUT IN REPAIR

President J. c. Maben announced yes terday that the Sloss- Sheffield Steel and Iron company would blow in it's No. 1 furnace at North Birmingham next Mon day, February 1T. He said that the company had less than 1000 tons on it's yards here-citb and North Birmingham eombined-and' that while the market was not active it was necessary to run one of the four furnaces in order to get such distribution of grades as contracts called for.
 ~'No' 4' North Birmingham, was put fin hrst class condition last fall at a cost or Sl42,OOO and the repair work was com pleted just about the time the manic struck New York. No. at North Rir- mingham needed refining and it was MT. Mapens purpose to blow out that stack Just as soon as No was ready to re- sume. But the stagnation in the iron market that followed the panic resulted In both of the North Birmingham fur- naces and both of the city furnaces beinp placed on the idle list until the busi- ness outlook frightened. In the mean time the two furnaces at Sheffield and the one at Florence were continued In operation and the iron on its wards at those stacks amounts now to about so : OO0 tons.
 The resumption of No. 4 will give em- ployment to large number of men and will be accepted as another material sign or industrial improvement. Ordinarily the blowing in or the blowing out of one or even two or three furnaces. would at- tract little attention, but now the start Ing up of an idle stack is or cheeriny significance.
 MT. Maben said last night that a large amount of money would be expended on repairs to No. 3-considerably over s1oo.- 00O "1'O'
 hepalr work is being done at the sloss- Sherleld city plant and one of the fur- naces there will be blown in nroh.bl,, early In the spring. A brisk buying move- ment Tn the market of staying oualitv would cause that and several other stack. now idle to start up again.
 It is understood that the Rennh,;o oo,. pany VIII soon have two of it's furnaces at Ihomas In operation instead of only one as at present.
 Ane wall street Journal says:
 An increase in the blast furnace nro- auction of the Republic Iron and Steal company from the low point of 20 her cent in December to between 35 and Ao per cent in January, seems to indicate moderate improvement in steel and iron conditions, inasmuch as other stea, concerns have materially increased their respective outputs.
 AS an example the United States Steel corporation is now turning out about 45 per cent of it's normal output as com pared with less than 30 per cent in De- cember The increase in the output of steel and iron by the various companies would also seem to indicate an improve ment in earnings in January over De- cember, but under the present conditions 1t would be unsafe to make any predic tions as to the showing of the steel com panies In this respect over the next sev- eral months.
 Few of them earned their dividends in December and January but manufact urers are confident that the situation will show an improvement later on, which will not only enable the important steel companies to pay the present dividend rates, but show surplus at the close of the year besides. So confident are manufacturers that this will be the ulti- mate result that they will not hesitate to draw upon their surplus to make up dividend deficiencies for the next six months at least. By that time they will have better idea of the future course of the steel market