nace man's estimate. One-half of the product of this furnace, Mr. Pusey stated, ought to be gool enough for wheel iron or malleable castings, while the remainder would be suitable for foundry or milling purposes. Anthracite and coke iron could not, he said, be made for less than $14 or $15 per ton, and the market averages $18 per ton; while with charcoal fuel they could make it for $3 or $4 less, and get a better market for the product. The evidence of Mr. Shortiss of Toronto supplies an estimate of the cost A Michigan fur- of producing iron at Snowdon, given in 1885 by Mr. McCorquodale, superintendent of the Jackson Iron Co.'s furnace in Delta county, Michigan. It is based on the use of 55 per cent ore and hardwood charcoal, and is as follows: The Jackson Iron Co.'s furnace. Mr. McCorquodale was certain that Snowdon ore could be delivered at the furnace at $2.50 per ton, while at his own furnace the cost was $4.84 per ton; and he stated that they were able to make charcoal at 5 cents per bushel and haul the wood from three to four miles. "It is the long haul from the most distant kilus," he added, "that runs the price up to seven cents or a fraction over." The cost of production at the Jackson Iron Co.'s furnace in 1885, where the run was 50 tons daily, was as follows: An estimate for iron ore of the Kingston district. The charcoal used at this furnace is made of equal quantities of hard and William Rattle of Cleveland, Ohio, a mining engineer and analytical chemist, gave evidence before the Commission at Kingston and stated that he had been intimately connected with the smelting of iron since 1872. In his opinion the ores of the Kingston district are as easy to smelt as those of the lake Superior district; he favors Connellsville coke for fuel, which could be laid down at Kingston at $5.50 per ton. Mr. Rattle's estimate of the cost of producing a ton of pig iron, as extracted from his evidence, is as follows: "It would not be over $12 a ton anyway," he added; "all over and above that would be profit." If to this be added the government bonus of $1.50 and the customs duty of $4, it will raise the price to $17.50 per ton, and Mr. Rattle thinks that a margin of $6 should be ample encouragement. The cost of producing pig iron in Cleveland, he stated, was about $15, and Scotch pig was selling in that city at $21 after paying the duty of $7 per ton. At these rates the American iron makers have a profit of $6 per ton on coke iron selling at $21, while Ontario makers would realise the same profit by selling at $18 per ton. Mr. E. C. Garlick of Cleveland, mining engineer and metallurgist, whose report on the Henderson steel process is given in the Appendix, has furnished the writer with an estimate on the making of charcoal iron, based A Cleveland on five years' experience in Ohio, which places the cost at $14.30 per ton. estimate. Following are his figures: metallurgist's This is for a ton of 2,240 lb. of pig iron, and by using No. 1 ore the cost may be reduced 75 cents. The estimate is intended to cover a period of fifteen years, but Mr. Garlick states that in the beginning the cost will not exceed $12 per ton. As against charcoal iron imported from the United States at a cost of $26 per ton, this would afford a profit of $11.70 to $14 per ton. Deep mining and long haulage of charcoal would increase the cost of ore and fuel; but with a furnace in a favorable location the effect of these causes would not be feltat the beginning of the enterprise. 22 (M. C.) A Detroit fur The following estimate is extracted from the statement of Mr. Gerhauser, aase man's data. Secretary and treasurer of the Detroit Union Iron Co., which appears at the end of this Section and is for the long ton of pig iron: Record of Iron The cost of repairs, management, etc., is not included in this estimate. The iron ore is brought down from the Marquette district of lake Superior during the season of navigation, and the charcoal is brought in by railway distances ranging from 80 to 185 miles. It is made from two-thirds of hard and onethird of soft wood and costs about 5 cents per bushel of 20 lb. at the kilns. The pig iron is made expressly for car wheels and malleable castings, and its average selling price in 1888 was $19.52 per long ton. A record of the Iron Mountain furnace at Ironton, Wisconsin, as given by the manager to the Journal of the Charcoal Iron Workers Association of the United States in 1883,* gives the details of a run of 694 days. The total make in that period was 739 tons (2,268 lb.), the ore yielding 53.6 per cent. Following are the items of cost per ton: The actual cost of the ore, the manager stated, was 80 cents per ton delivered at the furnace, but it was charged up at $2 to give the mine a profit. So also the actual cost of the coal was 6 cents per bushel, but a half cent was allowed for stocking and extra handling. The furnace was an old style stone stack, with hot oven and boiler at the tunnel-head, the stack 27 feet high and 7 feet 10 inches diameter at the bosh. When the size and facilities of this furnace are considered, the editor of the Journal observes, the record is truly remarkable. The Journal of the Charcoal Iron Workers for 1881 gives the record of twelve furnaces during six consecutive weeks in the states of Michigan, *Journal vol. IV, p. 23. furnaces. Missouri, Maine, Pennsylvania and Maryland, showing (1) the size of each Record of six furnace, (2) the average weekly product of pig iron for the period in Michigan long tons, (3) the estimated per cent. value of carbon in the fuel, (4) the average quantities of fuel, ore and limestone used to the gross ton of pig iron. The following table gives the statistics of the Michigan furnaces:* For those six furnaces the average quantity of charcoal required to smelt a gross ton of pig iron was 1,862 lb., having a carbon value of 1,762 b.; the average quantity of ore required was 3,767 b., and the average quantity of limestone for flux was 153 b. Their cost will depend on the quality of the ore and fuel and the distance of the furnaces from the sources of supply, but the figures will be found useful to some extent in verifying other estimates.† Ignace furnaces A record of the Detroit Iron Furnace company's furnace for a campaign Record of of 413 working days, ending June 28, 1882, gives a total make of 17,257 Detroit and St. gross tons (2,260 b.) of pig iron from 57 per cent. ore, with 1,649,608 bushels of charcoal. The average quantity of charcoal used to make a ton of pig iron was 95 bushels of 20 b. per bushel. A Martel furnace at St. Ignace, Michigan, 53 feet stack by 10 feet diameter of bosh, produced in 24 working days in 1881, from 3,571,200 lb. of 59 per cent. ore, 950 tons of pig iron, using 1,420,250 lb. of charcoal, being at the rate of 1,494 lb. of charcoal for each ton of iron.§ Spring Lake A record of the Spring Lake Iron Co.'s furnace at Fruitport, near Record of the Grand Haven, Mich., is given in the Journal of the Charcoal Iron Workers furnace, for a run of 8 years, or 3,205 days.|| It is a hot blast furnace, 45 feet high and bosh diameter of 10 feet, and the average temperature of the blast is *Charcoal Iron Workers' Journal, vol. II, p. 373. +A comparison of 28 Swedish and 18 American furnaces published in the Charcoal Iron Workers' Journal, vol. III, p. 393, supplies the following data: Michigan. Record of the Wisconsin. Record of the Mancelona furnace, Michigan. 850°. The ore, which varies in the mixture from 58 to 61 per cent., is brought from lake Superior mines by rail and vessel; the limestone is brought by vessel from Kelly's island in lake Erie, and the fuel supply, which is made of two to one parts of hard and soft wood, is obtained at and near the furnace, the longest haul being 40 miles by railway. The total make of pig iron for the 3,205 days of running time-from March 4, 1880, to September 7, 1889,—was 153,999 gross tons, the average make per day being 48 tons, and the average quantity of charcoal required to make a ton of iron being 93 bushels of 20 lb. each. Another record is given in the same Hinkle furnace, number of the Journal for the Hinkle furnace of the Ashland Iron and Steel Co., located at Ashland, Wisconsin. In a period of 389 actual working days it made 29,398 gross tons of pig iron, being an average of 75 tons per day, and since then it has made an average daily run of 90 gross tons. About 85 bushels of charcoal and 13 tons of lake Superior ore were used to make a ton of pig iron. The stack is a taper shell 60 feet in height and 12 feet in diameter at the base, and two fire-brick stoves heat the blast to a temperature of 900°. A record of the Antrim Iron company's furnace at Mancelona, Mich., for a run of 340 days, ending June 1, 1887,* gives an average of 81 bushels of charcoal to make a gross ton of pig iron, smelted from an average of 3,754 b. of 60 per cent. ore mixed in the proportion of 80 per cent. hematite and 20 per cent. specular. The average quantity of limestone used for flux was 156 lb. per ton of metal, the average quantity of ore smelted bushel of charcoal was 46 lb., and the average number of gross per tons made per day was 47. The stack of the furnace is 48 feet high, the diameter of the bosh 8 feet 6 inches, and the average temperature of the blast for the period of the record was 850°. A record of the Tecumseh furnace in Alabamat gives statistics of 2,080 days running time, from 1875 to 1882, during which 35,927 tons of pig iron (of 2,268 lb.) were produced, of which 16,000 tons was No. 1. The ore was a brown hematite yielding 49.2 per cent., and the average quantity required to make a ton of iron was 4,550 lb. The quantity of charcoal required to make a ton of iron was 2,165 lb., and the quantity of flux 531 lb. of limestone. During the campaign the blast was maintained at an average temperature of 750° F. and the pressure varied from 1 to 3 lb. per square inch, and the average make of actual working time was 17.27 tons per day. The cost of material, labor, management and other expenses are not given with any of those records; but this depends so much on the locality of the furnace that it is of less consequence than data of material and product.‡ Record of the Tecumseh furnace, Alabama. Conditions governing the cost of ore and fuel. The cost of ore at the mine is little more than the labor cost of raising it, which will be greater or less according as it lies in the ground, the depth from which it has to be taken and the effectiveness of the mining machinery used. The pig iron yield of the ore depends on its richness, but partly also on the character of the fuel used, the working qualities of the furnace and *Charcoal Iron Workers' Journal, vol. VII, p. 208. +See Journal, vol. IV, pp. 189-197. Some high estimates of cost of production, published by the Journal of the Charcoal Iron Workers, are omitted because they were given with the avowed object of influencing tariff legislation. |