+-------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| | Yearly average Price in Pennsylvania, gross tons. |
| +-----------------------------------------------------+
| Date. | Bar (Wrought) |Wrought Iron| Steel | No. 1 |
| | Iron. | Rails. | Rails. | Foundry |
| | | | |Pig Iron.|
+-------+------------------+------------+-----------+---------+
| 1800 |$100.50 \ | | | |
| 1815 | 144.50 | Hammered| | | |
| 1824 | 82.50 | | | | |
| 1837 | 111.00 / | | | |
| | | | | |
| 1850 | 59.54 \ | $47.88 | | $20.88 |
| 1865 | 106.46 | | 98.62 | $158.46^3 | 46.08 |
| 1870 | 78.96 | | 72.25 | 106.79 | 33.23 |
| 1880 | 62.04 | Best | 49.25 | 67.52 | 28.48 |
| 1890 | 45.83 | refined | 25.18^2 | 31.78 | 18.41 |
| 1898 | 28.65 | rolled | 12.39^2 | 17.62 | 11.66 |
| 1900 | 44.00 | | 19.51^2 | 32.29 | 19.98 |
| 1906 | .. | | 23.03^2 | 28.00 | 20.98 |
| 1908^1| 31.00 / | 18.25^2 | 28.00 | 17.25 |
+-------+------------------+------------+-----------+---------+
^1 July 1st.
^2 Old. i.e. second-hand wrought iron rails.
^3 1868.
Table V. shows the reduction in prices. The price of wrought iron in
Philadelphia reached $155 (L32, 0s. 8d.) in 1815, and, after declining
to $80 (L16, 10s. 8d.), again reached $115 (L23, 15s. 4d.) in 1837.
Bessemer steel rails sold at $174 in the depreciated currency of 1868
(equivalent to about L25, 17s. 4d. in gold), and at $17 (L3, 10s. 3d.)
in 1898.
133. _Increase in Production._--In 1810 the United States made about
7%, and in 1830, 1850 and 1860 not far from 10% of the world's
production of pig iron, though, indeed, in 1820 their production was
only about one-third as great as in 1810. But after the close of the
Civil War the production increased by leaps and bounds, till in 1907
it was thirty-one times as great as in 1865; and the percentage which
it formed of the world's production rose to some 14% in 1870, 21% in
1880, 35% in 1900 and 43% in 1907. In this last year the United States
production of pig iron was nearly 7 times, and that of Germany and
Luxemburg nearly 5 times, that of 1880. In this same period the
production of Great Britain increased 28%, and that of the world more
than tripled. The corresponding changes in the case of steel are even
more striking. The United States production in 1907 was 1714 times
that of 1865, and the proportion which it formed of the world's steel
rose from 3% in 1865 to 10% in 1870, 30% in 1880; 36% in 1890, 40% in
1899 and 46% in 1907. In 1907 the British steel production was nearly
five times, that of the United States, nearly nineteen times as great
as in 1880. Of the combined wrought iron and steel of the United
States, steel formed only 2% in 1865, but 37% in 1880, 85% in 1899 and
91% in 1907. Thus in the nineteen years between 1880 and 1899 the age
of iron gave place to that of steel.
The _per capita_ consumption of iron in Great Britain, excluding
exports, has been calculated as 144 lb. in 1855 and 250 lb. in 1890,
that of the United States as 117 lb. for 1855, 300 lb. for 1890 and
some 378 lb. for 1899, and that of the United Kingdom, the United
States and Germany for 1906 as about a quarter of a ton, so that the
British _per capita_ consumption is about four-fold and the American
about five-fold that of 1855. This great increase in the _per capita_
consumption of iron by the human race is of course but part of the
general advance in wealth and civilization. Among the prominent causes
of this increase is the diversion of mankind from agricultural to
manufacturing, i.e. machinery-using work, nearly all machinery being
necessarily made of iron. This diversion may be unwelcome, but it is
inevitable for the two simple reasons that the wonderful improvements
in agriculture decrease the number of men needed to raise a given
quantity of food, i.e. to feed the rest of the race; and that with
every decade our food forms a smaller proportion of our needs, so
rapidly do these multiply and diversify. Among the other causes of the
increase of the _per capita_ consumption of iron are the displacement
of wood by iron for ships and bridge-building; the great extension of
the use of iron beams, columns and other pieces in constructing
buildings of various kinds; the growth of steam and electric railways;
and the introduction of iron fencing. The increased importance of
Germany and Luxemburg may be referred in large part to the invention
of the basic Bessemer and open-hearth processes by Thomas, who by them
gave an inestimable value to the phosphoric ores of these countries.
That of the United States is due in part to the growth of its
population; to the introduction of labour-saving machinery in iron
manufacture; to the grand scale on which this manufacture is carried
on; and to the discovery of the cheap and rich ores of the Mesabi
region of Lake Superior. But, given all these, the 1000 m. which
separate the ore fields of Lake Superior from the cheap coal of
Pennsylvania would have handicapped the American iron industry most
seriously but for the remarkable cheapening of transportation which
has occurred. As this in turn has been due to the very men who have
developed the iron industry, it can hardly be questioned that, on
further analysis, this development must in considerable part be
referred to racial qualities. The same is true of the German iron
development. We may note with interest that the three great iron
producers so closely related by blood--Great Britain, the United
States and Germany and Luxemburg--made in 1907 81% of the world's pig
iron and 83% of its steel; and that the four great processes by which
nearly all steel and wrought iron are made--the puddling, crucible and
both the acid and basic varieties of the Bessemer and open-hearth
processes, as well as the steam-hammer and grooved rolls for rolling
iron and steel--were invented by Britons, though in the case of the
open-hearth process Great Britain must share with France the credit of
the invention.
Tables VI., VII., VIII. and IX. are compiled mainly from figures given
in J. M. Swank's _Reports_ (American Iron and Steel Association).
Other authorities are indicated as follows: ^a, _The Mineral Industry_
(1892); ^b, _Idem_ (1899); ^c, _Idem_ (1907); ^e, _Journal Iron and
Steel Institute_ (1881), 2; ^i, Eckel in _Mineral Resources of the
United States_, (published by the United States Geological Survey
(1906), pp. 92-93.