The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-10-21

ders of these Niagara industries. It
 would take more than the space of this letter to tell you the story of carborun-
 dunn alone. The most interesting thing concerning it is how electricity is used
 to produce 1t, for 1t is somewhat after | the same methods that tho enormous current furnished here changes other common things into materials of the | greatest value.
 ] This is the case with ferro-silicon,
 which is used to absorb the oxygen | from molten steel thus making possi- ble sound castings and ingots by elirn- mating blow holes. We are now mak- 1 ing something like 2S.o00,00O tons of 1 steel a year and 70 per cent of this is i treated with rro-silicon. An enor-
 nous amount of it Is now used in all 1 the steel plants that are working for i the war.
 1 Silicon is also employed for general ing gas for our military balloons. All
 of the armies in Europe are equipped
 with the apparatus to generate it, and
 that in connection with their observa- ton balloons.
 | Speaking of high-speed steel, this Is
 a product that depends almost entirely
 upon Niagara power. It Is owing to this steel, made with alloys produced here. | that we have the perfection of the mod ern cutting tool. In the old days of car- | pon steel it was necessary to have a
 cool cutting edge, and the best a man could get was cut of 15 feet to the
 minute. With the high-speed tools be 1 can now take off chips of steel an inch
 and half wide and half an inch thick
 at the rate of 40 or 50 feet a minute,
 and that notwithstanding the tool is
 red hot. Without high-speed steel and
 artificial abrasives our machine shops
 would be cut to three-fourths or four ! fifths of their present product An au-
 tomobile plant which now produces 500
 cars per day could not turn out more than 100 cars with the same plant and l the same force.
 l Among the alloys made here are l ferrochromium, ferrovanadium and l ferrotungsten. Ferrochromium is the ! hardening agent used in making armor l plate. Without it there would be no 1 tough skin to protect our battleships,
 and no armor-piercing projectiles to serve our coast defenses. The battle l ship Pennsylvania has 10000 tons of armor, and to make this was required 300 tons of ferrochromium. The same material enters into the manufacture l of automobile steel and dies. More 1 than half of all the ferrochromium I that is used in the United States comes 1 1 Falls.
 l Everyone knows about aluminium. It l goes into automobiles and afrplanes, and is used for cooking utensils, acid containers and electrical transmission. There are three great plants here that ] make that product, and it is turned out l by the millions of pounds by means of this electric power.
 ]! And then take acetylene. The calcium carbide made here by electricity is 1 now saving millions of gallons of 1 crude oil, and. in the shape of l acetylene gas, Is giving light to thou ands of homes and public buildings.
 More than 500,00O miners now use acetylene lamps and the same light is
 used for guarding the coast line in in numerable beacon lights and buoys. l Acetylene, in connection with oxy- gen, produces a flame which is about ] the hottest known to chemistry. It is { so powerful that 1t will cut the hardest armor plate. It is used in repairing 1 the guns and other machinery on the l battlefelds, and also in doing similar work on our war vessels. Not long ago q 14-fnch propeller in a French war