The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-10-21
HOW NIAGARA FIGHTS FOR UNCLE SAG-By

grindstones, emery and diamond dust. In fact, 1t might be called artificial dia- monds, for 1t is composed of the hardest of crystals with edges so sharp that they can be used for grinding any materiaI without wearing It is employed in every motor car plant, and it has to do with the making of ball bearings transmission gears, crank shafts and everything con- nected with the cheap and the high prced cars. It is used in grinding the tools for the steel plants which are mak- ing projectiles, and 1t smoothes the shells which fit the guns to the thousandth of an inch. It is used in making all sorts of agricultural implements which have to do with our food supply, and with To- comotives and electrical machinery of every kind. It will even grind manga nese steel, which no steel tool can cut, and 1t will sharpen the finest of high speed tools.
 This wonderful product, like most of the others created here, comes from some of the cheapest and most common materials in nature. It is formed of crushed coke and common sand, melted into crystals by an electric heat of 1000 degrees Fahrenheit, or more than 34 times as hot as boiling water. During my stay here l have gone through the plant which makes it. It covers 20 acres and 1t IS now making large quantities of abra- sive materials to be used in connection with the war.
 The plant is guarded by soldiers and every employe has to have 8 photo- graphic pass before he can get at his job. The official who took me in had to show his photograph upon entering and we were watched as we went from build ing to building, where are the mighty electric furnaces, which are turning coke and sand into the millions of crystals or artificial diamonds, to be used as grind stones and grinding powders. v
 The furnaces are enormous. They are cylinders or boxes made of fire brick, so high that the tallest man could walk through them without bending his head. They are about 20 feet long, ' feet wide and large enough to hold 10000 pounds of material. This material consists of crushed coke and sand, mixed with a little sawdust and salt to aid in the reduction. It is put into the furnace in such way that cord or rope of graphite runs lengthwise through the center of the mass from one end to the other. This cord, which is merely Jumps of graphite laid together in little trench. is connected with two big car- bon rods, one at each end of the furnace, and the carbon rods are joined to thick cables that bring in the electricity.
 The graphite cord carries the current much like the filament in an incandes- cent lamp. As it comes in, the black cord turns wlite-hot and the electric heat increases until 1t reaches the enor- nous temperature which I have mem tioned. The heat is so great that 1t would turn steel, iron, granite or marble to vapor and make the most refractory materials burn like so much tallow. The fire is so glaring that if a person shouid look directly into a furnace he would be blinded, and the power consumed would be sufficient to operate 16-candle power carbon incandescent lamp for more than 200 years.
 It is this terrible heat that turns the coke and sand into crystals. It does that within 36 hours, at which time the steel framework outside the furnace is raised by machinery and the bricks are taken away, showing chunks and masses of jewels in the shape of crystals of all the colors of the rainbow. These masses are then taken from the furnace and crushed by big iron wheels into the millions of tiny individual crystals used for grind ing and the making of abrasives of va rious kinds.
 But I cannot describe the many won