NON-TECHNICAL CHATS ON IRON AND STEEL
AND THEIR APPLICATION TO MODERN INDUSTRY
BY
LA VERNE W. SPRING, A.B.
CHIEF CHEMIST AND METALLURGIST, CRANE CO., CHICAGO
_WITH TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS AND DIAGRAMS_
[Illustration: [Logo]]
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
_Copyright, 1917, by_
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
_All rights reserved, including that of translation
into foreign languages_
TO
MY FELLOW WORKERS
IN THE VAST IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY
THIS BOOK IS
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
FOREWORD
It has long been a desire of the author to put into non-technical form
the interesting data here given. During several years spent in the
service of one of the great steel companies of this country, first in
the laboratories and afterward in the rolling mills, he acquired a love
for the industry that is now of fairly long standing. Spending as much
of his spare time then and since in visiting various parts of that
mammoth plant and as many others as he was able, he has always felt that
this extremely interesting subject could not fail to prove fascinating
even to those who had previously known little of the manufacture of
steel and steel products. Later work with gray and malleable cast irons
and with cast steel enlarged the outlook and further urged his sharing
these interesting things with others not so fortunately situated.
Such an inspiration, if it may so be called, is the reason for the
appearance of these articles. Practically as here reprinted, the first
thirteen of them were published during 1915 and 1916 in serial form in
the “Valve World,” the house organ of Crane Company of Chicago, with
which the writer for some time has been connected. The enthusiasm with
which they were received has been very gratifying, while the scores of
letters bearing favorable comment testify to the correctness of the
judgment that the metallurgy of our most useful metal, iron, is of very
general interest.
It may be remarked by some that certain of the statements made in the
book are not strictly accurate in that few details have been stated or
exceptions made. This is true, but it seemed necessary if main facts
were to be made to stand forth with the boldness required to accomplish
the purpose which the author had in mind. The chapters are in no way
intended to be an encyclopedia of the subject. The idea throughout has
been to present only the main points and to show the derivation of the
products from the raw materials and their relationships to each other.
In other words the book is intended only as a sort of outline.
References are given which will aid in the selection of works to be
consulted by any who are sufficiently interested to go farther.
Without the encouragement and coöperation of Crane Company and the kind
assistance of friends, some within and some without the iron and steel
industry, this little book would not have been possible. Special mention
must be made of the aid given by Messrs. I. M. Bregowsky, J. A.
Matthews, C. D. Carpenter, and others whose reading of and suggestions
concerning parts of the manuscript were of much help. Thanks are due
also to many individuals and firms for their very hearty coöperation in
furnishing information and the photographs which appear in the pages of
the book.
L. W. S.
_Illustrations are from the following sources:_
A. M. Byers Co., Pittsburg.—National Tube Co., Pittsburg.—U. S. Steel
Corporation, New York.—Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Co., Birmingham,
Ala.—Shenango Furnace Co., Pittsburg.—Pickands, Mather & Co.,
Pittsburg.—United States Geological Survey.—Wellman-Seaver-Morgan Co.,
Cleveland, O.—Lackawanna Steel Co., Buffalo.—Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Co.,
Ishpeming, Mich.—J. H. Hillman & Sons Co., Pittsburg.—Harbison-Walker
Refractories Co., Pittsburg.—By-Products Coke Corporation, Chicago.—H.
Koppers Co., Pittsburg.—Federal Furnace Co., Chicago.—Crucible Steel
Company of America, Pittsburg.—Crane Co., Chicago.—Interstate Iron &
Steel Co., Chicago.—LaBelle Iron Works, Steubenville, O.—Morgan
Construction Company, Worcester, Mass.—J. A. Matthews. Syracuse, N.
Y.—McLain’s System, Milwaukee, Wis.—Allis-Chalmers Co., Milwaukee,
Wis.—J. H. Williams & Co., New York.—Griffin Wheel Co., Chicago.—U. S.
Molding Machine Co., Cleveland.—Bradley Manufacturing Co., Bradley, Ill.
(Sears, Roebuck & Co., Chicago).—Snyder Electric Furnace Co.,
Chicago.—Commonwealth Steel Co., St. Louis.—John A. Crowley & Co.,
Detroit.—Illinois Steel Co., Chicago.—Pickands, Brown & Co.,
Chicago.—“Sketches of Creation,” by Alexander Winchell. Harper & Bros.,
New York.—“Descriptive Metallurgy of Iron,” by S. Groves.—“Materials of
Engineering,” by R. H. Thurston. John Wiley & Sons, New York.—“Chambers’
Encyclopedia.” J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia.—“Cast Iron in the Light
of Recent Research,” by W. H. Hatfield. Charles Griffin & Co., Ltd.,
London.—“Handbook of Chemical Technology,” Wagner-Crookes. D. Appleton &
Co., New York.—“The Ore Deposits of the United States and Canada,” by J.
F. Kemp. McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York.—“The Valve World.” Crane Co.,
Chicago.—“The Romance of Steel,” by H. Casson. A. S. Barnes & Co., New
York.—“The Metallurgy of Steel,” by Harbord & Hall. Chas. Griffin & Co.,
Ltd., London.—“Metallurgy of Steel,” by H. M. Howe. McGraw-Hill Book
Co., New York.—Tomlinson’s “Encyclopedia of Useful Arts” (1854). G.
Virtue & Co., New York.—“Liquid Steel,” by E. G. Carnegie. Longmans,
Green & Co., New York.—“Iron and Steel in All Ages,” by James Swank.
American Iron & Steel Association, Philadelphia.—“The A.B.C. of Iron and
Steel.” Penton Publishing Co., Cleveland, O.—“The Iron Age.” David
Williams, New York.—“The Iron Trade Review.” Penton Publishing Co.,
Cleveland, O.—“High Speed Steel,” by O. Becker. McGraw-Hill Book Co.,
New York.
[Illustration: CONTENTS]
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE EARLY HISTORY OF IRON 1
II THE RAW MATERIALS 17
III RAW MATERIALS (_Continued_) 37
IV THE BLAST FURNACE 52
V A GENERAL GLIMPSE AHEAD 69
VI WROUGHT IRON 91
VII CEMENTATION AND CRUCIBLE STEELS 106
VIII BESSEMER STEEL 123
IX THE OPEN-HEARTH PROCESS 142
X CAST IRON 160
XI CAST IRON (_Continued_) 178
XII MALLEABLE CAST IRON 195
XIII CAST STEEL 214
XIV THE ALLOY STEELS 233
XV THE HIGH-SPEED STEELS 240
XVI THE MECHANICAL TREATMENT OF STEEL 245
XVII THE ROLLING PROCESS 259
XVIII THE ROLLING OF RODS 277
XIX WIRE AND WIRE DRAWING 284
XX THE MANUFACTURE OF PIPE AND TUBES 292
XXI THE MANUFACTURE OF SEAMLESS STEEL TUBES 302
XXII TRANSFORMATIONS AND STRUCTURES OF THE STEELS 310
XXIII THE EQUILIBRIUM DIAGRAM OF THE IRON-CARBON ALLOYS 335
REFERENCES 350
INDEX 355
NON-TECHNICAL CHATS ON IRON AND STEEL
CHAPTER I
THE EARLY HISTORY OF IRON
[Illustration:
PREHISTORIC MAN
]
When in imagination we see the iron maker of early days sitting
cross-legged on his platform between two crude bellows formed from goat
skins with slits for air intakes and nozzles of bamboo, working them
alternately to deliver their pitifully small streams of air into the
hole in the side of a bank of clay which served as a furnace, we wonder
at his patience; and after long hours of such effort his reward was only
a few pounds of iron!
Contrast with this, if you please, the modern blast furnace with its
towering height of 100 feet, its four huge heating stoves, the big
blowing engines which each minute deliver to the furnace 50,000 cubic
feet of blast, and the whole array of dust arresters, gas washers, and
automatic ore and coke handling machinery which are essentials of this
king of modern metallurgical devices. How insignificant seems the output
of the ancient furnace when compared with the daily yield of 500 tons
from this giant of to-day!
How has this come about?
[Illustration:
THE FIRST RAZOR
]
Looking back over the centuries we see a period many thousands of years
ago when primitive man lived in caves or other rude habitations and was
entirely without the implements which we now consider indispensable. The
weapons with which he defended his wife and babes from the wild beasts
and from his warlike neighbors were clubs, wooden spears with perhaps a
bone or shell tip, and hatchets of chipped stone tied with thongs of
hide into a split stick. He managed by ingenious snares and his crude
weapons to provide game and fish for the support of his family.
He did not shave often, for his wife was not as particular in regard to
his appearance as are modern women, but when such a thing happened, a
piece of shell was his razor. The good wife had no steel needles with
which to sew together skins for their crude clothing. If she darned her
husband’s socks it is not recorded, nor did she use steel crochet hooks
in making the “doilies” for their parlor table.
When grain began to supplement the wild game, fruit, and berry diet, it
was broken between flat stones or ground in stone mortars. Fires were
kindled after long and laborious twirling or rubbing together of two dry
pieces of wood. With his stone hatchets and by liberal burning away of
parts by fire he formed his canoes from trunks of fallen trees.
This was the “Stone Age,” and iron and steel were unknown and not to be
heard of for many thousands of years.
In various parts of the world copper always has occurred “native”; i.e.,
in the metallic form and not in combination with other elements as an
earth or ore. As the centuries rolled on, man eventually learned that
this soft red metal could be pounded into thin-edged implements and that
it made more useful tools than those of stone, which his ancestors had
taught him to form. Some of these metal implements were hard and had
fairly good cutting edges, made so by accidental or intentional presence
of tin, and little did he dream that the twentieth century upon finding
his buried bronze implements would think his crude alloy so wonderful
and talk reverently of a “lost art of tempering copper.”
[Illustration:
IMPLEMENTS OF THE STONE AGE
]
Gold, too, became known to him because it also occurs “native.” Its
melting point was low enough that he could fashion it into ornaments,
idols, and other articles for religious purposes. But during the
hundreds of centuries of the “Stone Age” and during much of this—the
“Bronze Age”—copper, bronze, and gold were the only metals used. Though
the smiths became very dextrous in casting and modeling these metals,
they yet knew not iron or steel.
[Illustration:
IMPLEMENTS OF THE BRONZE AGE
]
Round about them during these many centuries, as multi-colored earths or
rocks, were the ores of various metals. They little dreamed that when
rightly treated certain of the heavy red, yellow, or black earths which
lay right at their doors could give up that most useful metal, iron. No
one even had knowledge of such a substance, for, unlike copper and gold,
iron never occurs “free,” having too great a tendency to chemically
combine with other elements, for example, oxygen of the air, with which,
in moist climates, it so readily forms “iron rust.” Besides, its melting
point is high and so much heat and carbon are needed for its “reduction”
from the ore that, during the thousands of years that had gone before,
it had never been produced.
[Illustration:
PRIMITIVE FURNACE FOR SMELTING IRON
]
But one day by accident and under fortunate coincidence of rich ore,
high heat, and plenty of carbon in the form of charcoal from the wood, a
lump of metallic iron was formed underneath a pile of logs which had got
afire and burned fiercely because of a high wind. When pounded between
two stones this new heavy metal, too, was malleable and could be formed
into a spearhead superior to anything yet known. Every one was
interested and an observant one soon “doped out” that certain earths
could be made to yield this new metal, iron.
The art of extracting it spread slowly, each artisan learning from his
neighbor, and, as rich ores were plentiful in many districts, iron
became more and more generally produced. Not only in one country was
this so but evidence shows that in many others—in Egypt, Chaldea,
Borneo, India, China, etc.,—roughly similar processes and crude furnaces
came to be used.
Tubal-Cain, supposedly about 4000 years B.C., is mentioned in the Bible
as an “artificer in iron and brass,” and a wedge of wrought iron was
buried in the great pyramid of Cheops probably as early as 3500 B.C.
This wedge was recently found and is now the property of the British
Museum. The Chinese made use of iron many centuries before the Christian
era, but the Assyrians are supposed to have been the first to use the
metal on a really extensive scale.
[Illustration:
THE PILLAR AT DELHI, INDIA
]
The much discussed pillar at Delhi, India, which is still standing in a
remarkable state of preservation, is twenty-two feet high. It is made up
of several wrought iron sections cleverly welded together. As the
natives regard it with religious awe, metallurgists have been unable to
make thorough investigation and chemical analysis. While the date of its
erection is somewhat in doubt, it is supposed to have been about the 4th
or 5th century A.D.
But from our modern viewpoint those early iron furnaces were queer
things. The first were little more than piles of ore and wood or
charcoal on the tops of hills where a brisk wind would make a hot fire.
Later, with the invention of the crudest of bellows, the smelting was
done in small holes in the side of banks of clay, charcoal made from the
forest trees being used as fuel. Indeed, some of these types of furnaces
still exist and are so operated to-day in neglected districts in Western
India and elsewhere, producing their little five to 100 pound balls of
iron after several hours of tedious work.
When the Romans invaded Britain (now England), they found the Britons
making iron in crude furnaces called bloomaries; and not a great deal of
improvement, except in size, was made up to Queen Elizabeth’s time, when
strict laws had to be enacted to prevent destruction of the forests
which were being denuded for production of charcoal, coke, which we know
so well, not yet having been produced for fuel.
[Illustration:
MILADY’S NEEDLE
]
[Illustration:
THE CATALAN FORGE
]
But the real forerunner of our modern blast furnace was the Catalan
forge, developed in and named from Catalonia, north Spain, where it
originated. The Catalan, however, and all of such crude early furnaces,
including those thus far described, produced a variable kind of what we
now know as “wrought iron,” and our modern “cast” iron did not appear
until about 1350 when, with larger furnaces, an excess of charcoal, with
greater heat and other favorable conditions, the Germans found that the
pasty, difficultly melting metal could be made to absorb carbon enough
to make it easily fusible. _This_ was the secret.
To state the matter in a simple way, iron ore, which is essentially a
natural “iron rust,” is the metal, iron, held in the strong chemical
grip of the gas, oxygen, which normally forms one-fifth of the air we
breathe. As you note, the combination forms a substance entirely unlike
either the iron or the oxygen, but both of these can be regenerated from
it (the ore) by chemical methods. Under influence of high heat (this is
one of the chemical methods, by the way), this stranglehold can be
broken by carbon, of which lampblack, graphite, charcoal, and coke, are
our most familiar examples. The result, in the small, crude, and
inefficient furnaces of long ago was a disappointingly small ball of
crude iron, pasty and scarcely meltable, even at highest heats, but soft
and malleable when cold. As mentioned, it was a variety of what is now
commonly called “wrought iron.”
[Illustration:
A CATALAN FORGE WITH ITALIAN TROMPE, OR WATER BLOWER
]
The ancients got this far.
But this was not “cast iron.” When, however, much more charcoal was
present in the highly heated furnace than was necessary simply to
combine with the oxygen of the ore, the liberated iron greedily absorbed
enough of the extra carbon to change its own nature. The metal then
became very fluid, whereas before it had been pasty and stiff even at
much higher temperatures, or, indeed, at white heat. This liquid iron
could be “cast,” that is, poured into molds and in that way made into
various useful shapes. It therefore became known as “cast iron” because
of this property.
So the brittle metal (cast iron) in our kitchen ranges, for instance, is
only the early malleable form of the metal _surcharged with_ or having a
large amount of carbon (3½ per cent to 5 per cent) in its make-up, and
it is this supercarbon content which confers the fluid quality while hot
and the extreme brittleness when cold. True, there are other important
constituents in our modern cast iron, but for our present purpose they
need not be dealt with.
It has been stated that the ancients got only as far as balls of wrought
iron. They really got further as their very fine sword steels show—the
“Wootz” of India, the “Damascus” of Syria, and later the “Toledo” of
Spain. These they produced by heating rich ore in very small, closed
crucibles with just enough carbon (pieces of wood or green leaves) to
make what we now call “carbon tool steel.” As carbon steel is simply
iron which has absorbed _not over_ 2 per cent of carbon (cast iron
described above has a supersaturation with its 3½ per cent to 5 per cent
of carbon and therefore is entirely different) they were able to make it
in small quantities. When hardened by cooling quickly in water, a
forged-out blade of this product would cleave without dulling its edge a
piece of iron, it is said, or cut cleanly a tuft of silk floss tossed
into the air. These steels attained well deserved renown.
While no one can desire to cast the slightest disparagement on the
product of that period, much of which was excellent, astonishingly so
considering the period, a moment’s consideration will convince one that
modern products not only do not suffer in comparison but in reality are
immensely superior. The ancients had little or no knowledge of the
reason for the proper qualities of their tools and they made the metal
from variable materials in a crude way in such small quantities that
little uniformity was possible. While some of the product was
undoubtedly excellent, much must have been less desirable.
Modern discoveries and inventions, with the great mechanical progress of
the last three centuries and the scarcely half-century-old application
of chemical control, have given during recent years products of great
uniformity and marvelous quality. What can compare with thirty thousand
pound lots of steel turned out from one Bessemer converter each
seventeen minutes during the 24 hours in the day, that is, a total of
1300 tons or 2,600,000 pounds, in which not only the main controlling
element, carbon, but also four lesser ones, silicon, manganese, sulphur,
and phosphorus, are held within extremely narrow limits; or the modern
blast furnace which produces a million pounds each 24 hours, run with
the same certainty of control? Modern high-speed steels which are every
day being made have such high quality that tools formed from them will
stand up for hours working red-hot under a lathe speed of two or three
hundred linear feet per minute taking a deep cut and “plowing out” chips
faster than a laborer can carry them away.
[Illustration:
THE GERMAN STUCKOFEN
]
Modern war armament which has recently been so well advertised is
sufficient answer as to whether modern metallurgy is in advance of that
of centuries ago.
The only necessity for such comparisons is that it seems to be a failing
of many to think that our forefathers were more wise and better in other
ways than we. It was but a few years ago that the fallacious
announcement was made that during archeological excavations in Egypt
there had been found a fully equipped telephone system. The inference
intended to be conveyed, of course, was that Bell’s invention of the
telephone had been antedated many hundreds of years.
[Illustration:
A GERMAN BLAST FURNACE OF FIFTY YEARS AGO
]
The forerunner of the modern steels was crucible steel, first made by
Huntsman about the middle of the eighteenth century. Previous to his
time steel had been made by the “cementation” process by which method
hammered-out bars of wrought iron were given a hard steel crust by
heating to a red heat in charcoal or bone dust. Huntsman’s product began
to come so uniform and of such quality that his competitors were quite
outdistanced. It is related that one of them took advantage of a very
severe storm to gain admittance to the forest forge of Huntsman, who, he
knew, could not refuse shelter at such a time. What he beheld was a very
simple thing—the melting in a clay pot of pieces of cementation steel.
Even to-day the crucible process is holding its own where quality is the
main consideration. It is the method by which practically all of the
tool, automobile, and other special steels of to-day are manufactured
and can hardly be given too high a rating. The newly devised electric
furnace process is the only possible competitor in sight. Of course for
quantity and for lower cost the Bessemer and the open-hearth processes
are the only available ones, but crucible steel has been the mighty
factor in the commercial development of the world—at least until the
latter half of the last century when the two other processes last
mentioned began to acquire honor of their own without, however,
detracting much from the importance of crucible steel as the steel of
“quality.”
[Illustration:
THE FIRST IRON CASTING MADE IN AMERICA
]
Though more interesting than any of the “six best sellers” much of the
subsequent history of iron will have to be passed over at this time. We
can now only mention those very great and revolutionary discoveries and
inventions which led to and absolutely are the basis of the quantity and
excellence of modern irons and steels; namely, the trial for a time of
coke made from pit coal by Dud Dudley of England and its failure which
was turned into a great success a century later (about 1713) by Abraham
Darby; Watt’s invention of the steam engine in 1770 which made possible
application of a strong continuous blast; invention of the process of
“puddling” of iron and of the rolling mill by Cort about 1784; the
introduction by Neilson about 1830 of the hot instead of the cold blast
which increased blast furnace production fourfold; the regenerative
system of furnace heating invented by Frederick and William Siemens; and
the invention of the Bessemer and Siemens-Martin or open-hearth
processes which provided methods for steel making on such an immense
scale that this invaluable material was made available for general
purposes.
It should be repeated that the inventions just mentioned have been of
the utmost importance to the iron industry, and through them only has it
acquired its consequence of to-day. Without them we would not have the
wonderful steel bridges, the skyscrapers, the gigantic steel ships, the
all-steel railway trains, etc., and the hundreds of iron products that
are to-day so plentiful and so constantly about us that we disregard
their presence. It is difficult thus to pass them by, but as most of
them will be referred to in later chapters we must do so.
Early iron making in America is of interest to us and must be briefly
stated.
The colonists were aware of some of the iron ore deposits about them and
sent samples to England where these yielded very fine iron. In 1619 a
company known as the “London Colony” was sent out from England to engage
in the manufacture of iron at Falling Creek, near Jamestown, Virginia,
but three years later all were massacred by Indians. It was many years
before attempt was again made to manufacture iron in Virginia.
About 1637 the General Court of Massachusetts granted to Abraham Shaw
one-half of the benefit of “any coles or yron stone w^{ch} shall bee
found in any comon ground w^{ch} is in the countryes disposing.”
Apparently little resulted from this high-sounding grant.
Real iron making in America began six years later with John Winthrop,
Jr., and his “Company of Undertakers for the Iron Works” which for many
years operated in several localities in the New England States. Heaps of
cinders left from their furnaces may still be seen and testify to their
very extensive operation. One of Winthrop’s men was Joseph Jenks, who
became known as the “Tubal-Cain” of New England. What is claimed to have
been the first casting made on the Western Continent was made by him. It
is a small pot, which was acquired and is said to be still owned by the
family of Thomas Hudson, a descendant of Hendryk Hudson.
Sand molding as used at present was introduced by an ingenious
Englishman, Jeremy Floris, and is vastly superior to the previously used
system of molding in clay. Hollowware began to be extensively produced
about this time.
As the country developed, iron works sprung up here and there and
various kinds of articles came to be regularly manufactured. Of the
early plants we can only mention the Stirling Iron Works, at Warwick,
New York, which made the great 186–ton chain with links weighing 140
pounds each, which spanned the Hudson River near West Point, and where
in 1816 was cast the first cannon made in America; the foundry of Sharp
& Curtenius, in New York, where was cast the first steam cylinder; and
the Trenton Rolling Mills, which first rolled iron as fireproof
structural material.
Before the Revolutionary War the colonies exported considerable bar and
pig iron to Europe, and as early as 1791 England began to foresee that
this country would eventually be a serious rival.
Pittsburg’s great advantage as an iron and steel center has been due to
its proximity to an extensive seam of bituminous coal and ore in
adjacent counties, and to its location so near the Great Lakes, which
provided cheap water transportation for the Lake Superior ores. The
first iron works there was that of Turnbull & Company, which was
established in 1790.
Though Reameur, a Frenchman, is the accredited discoverer of the process
of malleableizing cast iron, Seth Boyden, in a little shop in Newark,
New Jersey, made malleable iron castings a commercial success.
[Illustration:
TWO MODERN BLAST FURNACES, SHOWING SKIP-HOISTS, CAST HOUSES, STOVES,
AND ORE PILE
]
The utilization of the great beds of high grade coking coal of eastern
Pennsylvania, well known as the Connellsville district, and the
discovery and development of the Lake Superior ore deposits have made
the United States the leading producer of iron and steel of the world.
The development of the Birmingham, Alabama, district, also has been a
chapter of great importance but lack of space forbids description at
this time.
We can have only a very slight appreciation of the debt which
civilization owes to iron, for practically everything we see or with
which we daily come in contact contains or has resulted from application
of iron in some way or other. Our cooking utensils and implements (even
the enameled and tinned ones), the kitchen range, the water and drain
pipes, and the furnace and heating plants of our houses, are they not
largely of iron? Our main building materials—the steel frames of
skyscrapers and bridges, and are not even wood, brick, stone, and cement
either shaped, molded, or of necessity made by aid of iron machinery?
The conveyances by which we travel—wagons, automobiles, street cars,
steam railways and steamships—how would they be possible without iron or
steel? Consider the power plants of our factories, of gas and electric
lighting plants, the pumping machinery and distribution systems of water
works, mines, etc. Would the electric current which supplies so much of
our power and light be known to-day or even be possible but for the
magnetic properties of iron? And how many of the materials and articles
which we wear, use, and have about us constantly would be in any way
possible without the wealth of steel machinery and tools which are
available and absolutely necessary for their production?
The iron industry is often spoken of as the barometer of a people’s
civilization. If all iron and iron products and their influence upon the
world should be obliterated, it seems impossible that we could be even
started on the road to civilization.
No matter how we try, probably none of us ever realizes the immensity
and importance of the iron and steel industry with approximately 460
huge blast furnaces here, 5000 cast and malleable iron foundries, about
1000 Bessemer and open-hearth steel and some 3000 puddling furnaces, and
the many thousands of factories which each day are turning the products
of these into rails, plate, wire, pipe, and the infinitude of finished
articles which enter into and are mighty factors of our civilization.
Yet with these furnaces, forges and factories at our very doors, 99.9
per cent of us are entirely oblivious to their wonders and to their
presence except to be annoyed by their noise and smoke. Even the
blacksmiths and their service we scarcely note, though they are daily
fashioning for us a material which is vastly more important and more
wonderful than any of the “Seven Wonders of the World.”