The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-11-25
(From Where the Bcssemer Blows,
by H. S. Hall in the Saturday
Evening Post /

Evening POSt.)
Steel, steel in the Bessemer con-
verter, fluid and thin, boiling and bub-
bling and splitting and suffering and
rolling and swashing-a tumbling,
tossing, heaving malestrom of liquid
fire. Steel in the pouring ladle,
creamy with molten Stag, blobbed with
bursting blisters of glazing gas,
placid and calm, and threatening
Steel in the 1adle nozzle, ripping and
cutting and kissing. juggling and
gurgung into the ingot molds, with a
sound as Of water poured into giant
jugs. Steel in the molds. hardening,
solidifying, changing from quivering
columns of white liquid to stable
prisms Of chilly red. Steel, dull red
and hard, tossed in massive ingots by
the mighty hands of tireless cranes,
from stripper house to soaking pits
Steel lifted from underground flam-
Ing furnaces, honey yellow and Stag
dripping, and. laid upon the delivery
tables before the maws Of the mill
Steel in the whirling, grinding. groan-
rolls, beaten and pounded aid ham
mered and squeezed into blooms. into
slabs, into billets, into bars, into rails
and channels and Orders, into rounds
and squares and flats and ovals and
hexagons and angles. Steel on the
cooling beds, going black. going black
er, going blue black, gone cold Steel
In the clutch Of the cold shears, snap
ping and popping and cracking as the
tempered jaws of the shears crunch
1t and MUNICH it. Steel on the incline
conveyors, sheared to lengths, ard
sawed and Clipped and bundled and
tied and paint marked, dropping with
rattle and bang and clatter into the
cars that wait to carry it away, a
thousand miles away, ten thousand
miles away, to the markets of the
world
Converters Know no Rest.
Steel where the Bessemer blows,
steel by the tens of thousands of tons,
The converters swing and sway on
their trunnions, and know no rest.
The blowing engines pound and pull
and pant and strain at their never fin
! 1shed task. The rumble Of the cranes
in the overhead gloom Of the black
! iron buildings never ceases. With I'M
broken monotony the pig metal ladies
roll back and forth, from mixer to
vessel to mixer, going filled to the
stopping brln, coming drained to the
lining of brick. The mold buggies slip
down the slOping tracks, one after an.
other, each bearing away its ton of
! steel, and noisy little narrow-gauge
+ locomotives come chugging. chugging,
! chugglng through the smoky sheds to
seize their loads of ingots Of steel and
stagger away to the soaking pits. The
steel blower with critical eye watches
through colored glasses the flames
that flicker and flare at the vessels
mouth, and leans YEARLY on his shin
ing levers
The pourer Of the white fluid listens
to the surgling Of the molds, estimates
his days tonnage and his paw. and
glances often at the clock. The test
| boy, his face CRIME streakod, his lips
fallen apart, listlessly Tugs his load Of
test pieces to the laboratory, and
prayS for the whistle to sound its
notice Of quitting time
Steel where the Bessemer blows
with everything going smoothlv-the
giant engines pounding rythmica)lv:
the converters oscillating as noiseless
ly as leaves moved by little breezes
the hot metal running right-neither
too hot nor too cold. not too high in
silicon, not too low; the cranes work
ing with precision and dispatch: the
mods coming into the pouring sta
ton, cleaned and cool: the tracks ken,