The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-24
IN SPITE OF THE PANIC IT WENT RIGHT ON MAKING AND PAY ING DIVIDENDS ON COMMON STOCK.

The Sloss- Sheffield Steel and Iron com pany is one of the largest and most pros porous corporations in the south. For many years it has been a steady money maker As an investment security its preferred stock. paying per cent divi- dend ranks practically as bond, while it's common has been paying per cent for several years. Dividend was paid on the quarterly right through the depres- sion caused by the panic
 The Sloss-Sheffield has vast tracts of coal and ore lands and valuable lime stone It is rich in both red and brown ore. Its brown ore at Russellville is one of the few properties of this character that is known as having exceptional value because of it's quality and it's extensive productivity.
 The company owns seven blast furnaces and great coke oven plants. Its furnaces are situated as follows: Birmingham 2, North Birmingham 2, Sheffield 2 and Florence 1. It has five furnaces in oper- ation and a sixth will be blown in inn mediately after the holidays. This will leave only one idle No. 3, at North Bir mingham, which is now being rehabili- tated at a cost of nearly a quarter of a million dollars The five stacks in opera tion are making high records. All the furnaces are far above the 200-ton mark in daily capacity. The Sloss-Sheffield company management is distinctiyely progressive and all it's development of raw material is on broad lines. It has made large expenditures on it's coal mine improvements and now has output capacity of 75O0 tons a day.
 In spite of the panic the Sloss-Shef- field is closing a most successful year. It's fiscal year ended November 30, and while it's report for that period has not been completed, it is known that a large sum will be added to it's already large surplus.
 The executive officers of the company are J. C. Maben, president. and J. w. Mo- Queen, vice president. The following extracts from MT. Maben's last pub- lished report of November, 1907, submitted to the stockholders, are of general inter est:
 Many inquiries have been made from time to time as to the amount of coal and iron ore owned by your company, and no approximate estimate has ever been officially given to the stockholders. It Is therefore deemed proper that an effort be made to give some idea of the holdings of your company.
 Your company owns 65, 600 acres of coal lands and 51 ,125 acres of brown ore lands. A pretty fair estimate can be formed as to the coal, as the general thickness of the several seams and the territory cov- cred are pretty accurately known. There is on file in the eompany's office, an es- .t.< 11xr familiar with the coal fields of Alabama, in which your coal lands are divided into various groups according to the railroads they may be tributary to, and the coal bearing acreage in each Is carefully con- puted, and an estimate given of the amount of coal in each seam under it. The statement gives the aggregate amount of coal in the several divisions and seams as 435.090,34S tons.
 It Is more difficult to make an approx innate estimate of the iron ore, as so small a proportion of the S1 900 acres has, as yet, or will be for long time, devel- oped. In the hard ore field where the vein runs regular about POGO acres have been developed, and in the brown orc fields about 1924 acres have been thor oughly tested by numerous test pits, etc. The ore in the developed hard ore fields, may be safely, we think, estimated at 726OO,0OO tons, and in the 1s44 acres of brown ore land at 26,000,000 tons. De- ducting the foregoing hard ore acreage, there is left on which to estimate 24,695 acres of hard ore. Some of this hard ore land it is known, carries thick vein of ore, while on some of it the vein Is thinner running from four to six feet Taking into consideration that not all the acreage is ore bearing, we think it conservative to estimate that the vein on the entire undeveloped acreage will average five feet, whichr should yield 1000 tons per acre. or a total on the undeveloped hard ore lands of 419,800,0O0 tons.
 In the Russellville tract you have 1S,6Oo