306 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1916. 



Pig iron production in millions of long tons, by States, 1912. 



Coke con- 

 sumed. 



Pennsylvania 



Ohio 



Illinois 



New York 



Alabama 



Indiana, Michigan 



Missouri, Colorado, and Califonua, 



Tennessee 



Wisconsin and Minnesota 



West Virginia 



Virginia 



Maryland 



Others 



31.26 



1 Omitted, 



We have thus an apparent available coke supply of 50,882 million 

 tons, and a consumption for blast-furnace purposes, in our heaviest 

 year of production, of 31.26 millions. There are thus over sixteen 

 hundred years' supply at this rate. In Pennsylvania, on the assumed 

 ratio of coking coal, there is about one thousand years' supply. These 

 time periods are so great that despite possible errors in assumptions ; 

 despite increasing coke consumption with lowering of grade of ore ; 

 and despite increasing output of pig iron, we seem justified in con- 

 cluding that the fuel supply is rather more abundant than the ore 

 supply. The reserves of bituminous coal in 1912 were placed by the 

 volume on Mineral Resources for that year at 1,651,057 millions of 

 short tons of which two thirds or 1,100,705 millions of short tons 

 could be mined. With an annual production, as in 1912, of 450 mil- 

 lion tons, a life of nearly twenty-five hundred years would be indi- 

 cated. Apparently coal for general fuel will last longer than coal 

 for coke. 



THE INCREASING STOCK OF SCRAP IRON. 



Much of the iron or steel, once it is used, is lost by oxidation, wear 

 and tear, or by being thrown away. A goodly proportion is, how- 

 ever, returned to furnaces and worked over. For this purpose, in 

 America, the electric furnace has proved of special advantage, as the 

 writer learns from Prof. J. W. Richards. With grow^th of produc- 

 tion and with increasing attention to the prevention of waste, now 

 so generally manifested throughout the country, the return of old 

 iron and steel for re-treatment is likely to ease somewhat the strain 

 on the mines. 



IMPROVEMENT IN PROCESSES. 



Electrical processes of smelting, in regions of great water powers 

 and low cost for current, have excited hopes of saving fuel. The 



