The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-11-18
Duluth. Minn.

Duluth, Mlnn. E7N HIS is the age of efficiency. The
 word is the open sesame to the S treasures of the world. The Ger mans are using it as the robbers did Tn "The Arabian Nights tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. In the great war of today, the Germans take the place of the Forty Thieves and ourselves and our allies represent Ali Baba, who conquered them by their own password. l have written of the efficiency of our iron mines and how by steam shovels we are getting out ore for the steel required Tor the war A single steam shovel will mine from 5000 to 1000 tons in one day, or enough to load a train of two-horse wagons 90 or 10 miles long.
 The password of ore transportation Is the same. Five up-to-date railroads are taking the iron from the mines down to the lakes Efficiency is stamped upon the cars and their operation. Each car holds upward of 100000 pounds, and rom 50 to 100 of them are carried down to the ports by single engine. nave counted trains of l2o cars. These trains are loaded in the mines and they do not Stop until their contents are dropped into the great ore bins through which, by gravity, they pass into the mighty steamers that carry them a thousand miles doWh tne lakes This is so notwithstanding the ore must be graded and sorted to Tt the requirements for making steel Of various kinds, and weighed by the government III course of transit The weighing is done while the cars pass through the station of Proctor which is the largest ore yafa of the world All they do is to slow up as they go through to speed Of less than eight miles an hour. At thls speeu they pass over automatic scales which record their weight.
 Efficiency stamps the transfer of the ore from the cars to the huge steamers which carry it to the steel plantA The loading docks about Lake Superior nave cost millions. You may see them at TWO Harbors, at Duluth, and at the porla of northern Wisconsin and Michigan came into Two Harbors on the James A. Farrell, the flagship of the fleet of the United States Steel corporation, and watched them taking on ore. The huge steamer, a low, rakish looking craft about 60 feet wide and 600 fet long, came to anchor under 8 steel pier as nigh as all eight-story house. The pier reached like a great arm far out into the water. There are four of these piers at Two liar bors and one of them is almost half mile long, Each pier upholds double row of bins made of concrete into which the ore is dropped from the cars which shoot in from the mines onto the tracks overhead The bins extend out from the pier, and from the bottom of each long steel chute or spout allows the ore to pour down into the vessels The chutes are raised and lowered by electricity. They extend from the bins right into the hold and the pulling of a lever will drop a river of ore into the ship. The Farrell has S4 matches, and, were it advisable, all could be loading at once from that many bins overhead. It takes only two or three minutes to empty a bin and 12,00o tons of ore have been loaded in less than an hour Three steamers were taking cargo at the time of my visit and within two or three hours more than S5,0O0 tons Of iron had started on it's way down Lake Superior.
 Similar loading is going on at the other ports of the lake. During my stay at Ashland, Wis, where went to take passage on a steamer carrying ore from the Gogebie mines down to the Illinois steel plant, I observed how the ore was mixed and graded during the loading. To make the best steel one must have just the right proportion of certain ores, and the mixing is done in the loading so that when the ore reaches the steel plant it is ready to be dumped without change into the furnaces. Everything is scientifically exact. The ores are ana lyzed at the mines, samples being taken from the cars as they leave, and the ores from different mines are dropped into the ship so that the iron contents and quality of the cargo are just those re- quired for steel. Much of this work is directed from the eastern office of the steel company where the exact contents and character of every Iron deposit are known, and much by the scientific en- gineers the ground, who have a small army of chemists analysing and assaying the ore as 1t is dug from the earth. In another letter I shall show you that this is but the beginning of the scientific methods of steel making. The metal is analysed as it flows from the furnaces and 1t Is rested again and