AMERICAN INDUSTRIES SINCE COLUMBUS. 463 



" simply a jacket " of boiler iron lined with, fire-brick. It was fifty- 

 feet high and twelve feet " bosh." 



The make of iron was twenty tons in twenty-four hours. Since 

 the date of the erection of this furnace, which at the time was 

 the only blast-furnace in Alleghany County (in which Pittsburg 

 is situated), Pennsylvania, there have been built within its ter- 

 ritory twenty-four coke furnaces, which produced in 1889 " more 

 pig iron than the whole State of Ohio ; more than twice as much 

 as Illinois ; and more than one seventh of the country's total pro- 

 duction." * 



The furnaces have not only increased in number, but their size 

 and output have been very much augmented. As an illustration 

 of this, furnace " F," of the " Edgar Thomson Steel Works," is 

 eighty feet high, twenty -two feet diameter at the " boshes," eleven 

 feet diameter of hearth, sixteen feet in diameter at the throat, and 

 has a capacity of 18,000 cubic feet. This furnace produces 10,603 

 gross tons of iron per month (351 tons per day) on a fuel consump- 

 tion of 1,756 pounds (coke) per gross ton. The pressure of blast 

 at the tuyeres is nine pounds per square inch, and its volume 

 25,000 cubic feet per minute, heated to 1,200 Fahrenheit.! 



While the iron-masters west of the Alleghany Mountains were 

 increasing the number, size, and economical working of their fur- 

 naces, the makers of " anthracite iron " in the Lehigh, Schuylkill, 

 and Susquehanna Valleys were by no means idle ; and their fur- 

 naces also increased in size and multiplied in number as the years 

 passed. As illustrating the influence of a successful manufacture 

 in drawing population and other industries to its immediate vicin- 

 ity, no better instance could be selected than the town of Cata- 

 sauqua, Pennsylvania, where was built in 1840 the furnace de- 

 scribed in the first part of this article. Where then was but a 

 single furnace, a small number of scattered houses, and a few 

 score of people, we now find five furnaces, two rolling-mills, and a 

 number of collateral industrial establishments, giving sustenance 

 to a large and busy population. Fig. 40 is a view of the present 

 blast-furnace plant at Catasauqua.J For the purpose of showing 



* Annual Report of James M. Swank, Esq., General Manager of the American Iron and 

 Steel Association, for the Year 1889. 



f For these details I am indebted to the courtesy of James Gayley, Esq., Superintend- 

 ent of Furnaces of the Edgar Thomson Steel Works. 



\ This view was taken looking diagonally up the Lehigh River ; but in that of the old 

 furnace (see Fig. 31) the spectator is supposed to be looking diagonally down the river, 

 which in Fig. 40 is in front, and just without the limits of the picture. The Lehigh Canal, 

 which is plainly seen in Fig. 31, is in Fig. 40 between the line of railway and the furnace 

 buildings. The canal lock (shown in Fig. 31) is at the left of the picture, its lock-house 

 being seen among the trees. The original furnace (1840) was located very near the large 

 building, having a curved roof, on the end of which is the sign of the " Crane Iron Works." 

 Nearly all the foreground, occupied by piles of pig iron, has been filled in since 1840. 



