We stood on a little round platform fifteen or twenty feet across, with
the hopper in the centre gobbling iron ore and limestone. A layer of ore
dust, an inch thick, covered the flooring, and a faint odor of gas was
in the air. Each of the other five furnaces had a similar lookout, and
a narrow passageway connected them with the tops of the stoves. The top
of these gigantic shafts likewise had a diameter of some fifteen feet;
there were little railings about them, and in the centre a trapdoor.
"What's that for?" I asked.
"Go inside to clean 'em out," he returned.
I wondered, with a few flights of imagination, what that job would be
like, and remembered that the Italian with the blond moustache had
spoken of the duty in uncomplimentary terms.
We could look forth from this eminence and see the whole mill yard,
which was nearly a mile in extent. Over the "gas house"--a large
building I hadn't noticed before, the source of gas for the
open-hearth--and far to the left, were the Bessemers, spouting red gold
against a very blue sky. On their right rose the familiar stacks of the
open-hearth. I looked intently at them and wondered what Number 7 did at
that moment--front-wall, back-wall, or tapping its periodic deluge of
hot steel?
In the foreground, a variety of gables, and then the irregular roof, far
beyond, that I knew must be the blooming-mill, because of the
interesting yard with the muscular cranes, tossing about bars and shapes
and sheets of steel. An immense system of railways everywhere, running
down as far as the river bank, where were piles of cinder, and a
trainload of ladles moving there to dump. A half-mile away another
ironclad cluster of buildings, the tube mill, the nail mill, and the
rest, with convenient rails running up to them.
I turned around. Near by, slightly beyond the foot of the skips, was
that impressive hill of red dust, the ore pile. Iron ore was being taken
away for the skips with one of those spider-like mechanisms that combine
crane, derrick, and steam-shovel. It was built hugely, two uprights
forty or fifty feet high, at a distance, I estimate, of a hundred yards,
with their bases secured to railway cars. A crossbeam joined them, which
was itself a monorail, along which a man-carrying car ran. From that car
dropped chains, attaching themselves at the bottom to the familiar
automatic shovel or scoop.
First the whole arrangement moved--the uprights, the crosspiece, and the
monorail car--very slowly over the whole hill of ore, to a good spot for
digging. Then the monorail car sped to the chosen position, and the
shovel fell rapidly into the ore. With a mouthful secure, the chains
lifted a little, enough to clear the remaining ore, and the car ran its
mouthful to the hill's edge, to dump into special gondolas on railroad
tracks. The whole gigantic ore-hill was within easy reach of a single
instrument.
"Ought to last a while," I said.
"Will be gone in a month," he returned.
We went down the ladder-steps, and stopped near one of the furnaces. I
rather hoped the stove-gang boss would talk. He did.
"Ever work blast-furnace before?" he began.
"No," I said; "I have worked on the open-hearth furnaces a little. But
before that I spent about two years in the army."
"Me in Austrian army," he said musingly, "fifteen year ago. Sergeant
artillery."
I thought about that, and it occurred to me that he retained something
of the artillery sergeant still, necessarily adapted a little to the
exigencies of American blast-stoves. I found he knew about ordnance, and
boasted of Budapest cannon-makers.
"How do you like this country?" I asked.
"America, all right," he said.
"Good country?" I pushed him a little.
"Mak' money America," he explained; "no good live. Old country fine
place live."
We developed that a little. We discussed cities. He asked me about
London and Paris, and other European cities. Which did I like best,
cities over there or American cities? I said American cities. He asked
what was the difference. I thought a minute, comparing New York and
London. European cities did not have the impressive forty-story edifices
of American, and looked puny with four or five.
"Ah," he said, "tall buildings no look good. Budapest good city, no can
build over five story."
Here was unlooked-for discrimination. I began feeling provincial. He
went on to describe the cleanliness of Budapest, and to contrast it with
Pennsylvania cities of his acquaintance. He certainly had me hands down.
He continued: "No can build stack that t'row smoke into neighbor's
house. Look at dis place," he said, pointing to Bouton, "look at
Pittsburgh."