The L'Anse sentinel., 1923-02-02

ately are machined and prepared Tor
final assembly.
Scarcely stones throw from the
ore bins they behold thousands of
these casting daily transformed into
completed tractors, moving to trains
under their own power only few
hours after they have been shovels-
full of red dirt.
This manufacturing feat, on a
scale so immense that it supplies the
entire foundry needs of the worlds
greatest automotive works, has be-
come the biggest Industrial news of
the generation. Other industries can
ignore it no more than armies could
ignore airplanes during the World
War.
"The genius who surpasses Ford's
achievement at River Rouge must
tap the molten ores in the center of
the earth and pipe them directly to
a foundry" declared one visitor.
This swift transformation of ore
into machined castings on a prod;g-
ious scale is the most spectacular
undertaking there, but it is far from
the only reason why manufacturers
and engineers are calling the River
Rouge plant "the most significant
and vitality important industrial de-
velopment in the world today"
Down in Kentucky and West Vir-
ginia, Ford mines are giving up coal
which a Ford railroad is hauling to
River Rouge; and Ford forests and
Ford iron mines in northern Michigan
are sending timber and ore in Ford
ships to River Rouge. The mines and
the forests are demanding machinery
and the railroad is demanding loco
motives, cars and rails; the tractor
plant and the Highland park plant
and the subsidiary plants and branch
es which are springing up in all parts
of the world are clamoring for parts
and machinery sufficient to make pos
sible next summer 4 daily production
of more than 5000 automobiles,
trucks and tractors. The River Rouge
plant has undertaken to supply, in its
entirety, from primary raw mater
ials, the titanic, world-reaching needs
CT Henry Ford's ever-expanding in
dustry.
The Greatest Turbine
There is power house which will
soon house the worlds greatest tur-
bine, now under construction by the
Ford Motor Co. itself. This power
plant soon not only will provide pow
err for River Rouge, but also will su-
persede the 10000 horsepower plant
at Highland Park. which for years
has been one of the show places of
industry. There is locomotive and
car repair shop which is expanding
into locomotive and car building
works. In the old Eagle boat factory
is a tractor plant with capacity of
600 tractors day, and it is being
replaced by still larger tractor
plant. n
There is a body plant which now
supplies the Highland Park automo-
bile factory and many Of the Amer
Ican branches. Under construction
at River Rouge are cement factory,
a paper mill, and glass factory, all
designed to fill all the needs of the
Ford Motor Company. A huge new
building now houses two lotion cleo
trio furnaces which make steel. and
will house 50-ton electric steel fur
nace-largest in the world-as soon
as the castings for the new turbine
are completed and out of the way.
This monster electric furnace, to be
operated on the conductive hearth
principle, has challenged the atten-
tion of industrial men throughout the
world. 1t is predicted that with il
Ford will make steel-making history
as sensationally as he made iron
making history.
The Sixty Coke Ovens
| Ford has been roasting coke at
River Rouge since October, 1919, but
his twin batteries of sixty ovens form
a spectacle which still arrests the at.
Itention of engineers on pilgrimage
to the plant. Henry Ford maintains
it is an industrial crime toburn coal
Each day he roasts 1000 tons Of pull
,vcrized soft coal into 1900 tons OF
coke; and last year he recovered his
oven vapors which yielded to ~hi'
broad acres Of towers, tanks, con
densing coils, centrifugal stills ant
Idecanters nearly seven billion cubic
feet Of gas, 17,766,000 pounds of am
,monius sulphate, Ats, 900 gallons o.
tar and 3,650,000 gallons Of motol
fuel. All these by-products are uset
in automobile making except the am
monium sulphate which is sold fol
fertilizer.
| 1t requires 22 hours to coke an over
and the process is timed so accu