100 ARCHER BROWN 



largest and most costly blast furnace plants yet constructed 

 in the United States has gone into operation recently in New 

 Jersey, within two hours ride of New York, and in a district 

 supposed to have been abandoned as an iron making center. 



Before leaving the subject of iron ores, it may be men- 

 tioned that very extensive deposits have been explored in 

 sections of the country too remote from the great manufac- 

 turing centers to be available for commerce for many years 

 to come. Wyoming, Utah, Washington, and even California, 

 have mountains of high grade ores, needing only railroads, 

 furnaces, mills, foundries, and an adequate market for the 

 products. All of these will come in time. Texas also has 

 its rich beds of both Bessemer and non-Bessemer ores, but 

 the absence of coking coal and the remoteness of consuming 

 centers will make the development slow. Mexico likewise 

 is rich in ores, but so poor in fuel that for a long time to come 

 the United States and other countries will have to supply 

 the finished iron needed by the sister republic. 



The most important deposits of iron ore outside the limits 

 of the United States, which may either be drawn upon for 

 supplying American furnaces or may appear in finished form 

 to compete with the United States, are in Nova Scotia, Cuba, 

 Venezuela, and Spain. Porto Rico, also has extensive Besse- 

 mer deposits. The extensive works lately completed at Cape 

 Breton arc now sending about a thousand tons a day to 

 eastern American seaports, about equally divided ui form 

 between pig iron and steel billets. The Cuban ores have been 

 used for twenty years as an important source of supply for 

 the leading eastern steel works, but the quantity has increased 

 l^ut little, although energy and capital have been expended 

 liberally in developing what seemed promising properties. 



The tariff long ago ceased to be a question of vital import 

 to the American iron industry. It needs no argument to 

 prove that, but for the protection afforded by the tariff in 

 the two or three decades following the war, the development 

 of the great resources of the country would have been re- 

 tarded indefinitely, to the immense advantage of England 

 and Germany. But that period has passed. The infant is 

 a giant. Does it follow that the tariff wall should now be 



