66 JOHN BIRKINBINE 



expensive and well equipped docks have been constructed 

 at seven different ports, where the ore coming in train loads 

 is received into bins, and delivered from the bins by gravity 

 into the holds of vessels. The vessels take the ore from the 

 shipping docks and carry it through two or more of the great 

 lakes to receiving docks where equal facilities for unloading by 

 mechanical appliances have been provided. In this way 

 enormous quantities of ore are handled cheaply and expe- 

 ditiously. 



The Vermilion range, in Minnesota, was opened in the 

 year 1884. The ore which is here produced is a hard specular, 

 high in iron, and usually of Bessemer grade. This range is 

 the farthest removed from the principal pig iron producing 

 centers, and the high esteem in which the ore is held is shown 

 by the fact that much of it traverses a distance of over 1,000 

 miles to points of consumption. The two principal producing 

 mines in this range are known as the Pioneer and the Chandler. 



In the summer of 1903 the Lake Superior Iron Mining 

 company, a pioneer of the region, celebrated the fiftieth year 

 of its activity, and the following statement made by me for 

 that occasion emphasizes the development referred to : 



''Neither the records of the production of the Lake 

 Superior region nor the annual reports of the American Iron 

 and Steel association go back beyond 1854; therefore no data 

 earlier than this will be exact. 



''In 1854 there was one mine reported as operating in 

 the Marquette range, the shipments amounting to 3,000 tons. 

 In 1902 the shipments of the Marquette range were 3,868,025 

 tons, the lake shipments from all ranges in that year reaching 

 a total of 27,039,169 tons. 



"The production or consumption of iron ore in the United 

 States in 1854 can only be estimated from the quantity of pig 

 iron made. According to the census statistics of 1850 there 

 would have been in the neighborhood of 1,500,000 tons of iron 

 ore consumed during that year, for there was made in the 

 country 563,775 tons of pig iron. In 1854, according to the 

 reports of the American Iron and Steel association, 736,218 

 net tons, equivalent to 657,337 gross tons, of pig iron required 

 about 1,750,000 tons of iron ore, whereas in 1902 the country 



