USES TO WHICH IRON IS PUT 131 



the city, mio;ht reply tliat it goes largely into skyscrapers; 

 if he lives in the country, that it goes into railroad rails. 

 Either answer would be far from correct. Less than 5 per cent 

 of the product goes into the framework of steel buildings. 

 Rail tonnage varies, but this 3'ear it bids fair to be only about 

 one eighth of the total. 



It is the small uses of iron products which makes up the 

 bulk of the tonnage. AFliilc there is in the Ignited States 

 about one mile of railroad for every 400 of population, new 

 railroad building is far less active than it was in the late eighties 

 and the railroads, which consume, roughly speaking, one half 

 of the iron, find their consumption more in the direction of 

 rolling stock, terminals and bridges than they do in rails. 

 The great bulk of the rails which are purchased are for re- 

 newals, and not for extensions. Ten years is a long life for 

 a rail where traffic is most congested, but traffic is really heavy 

 on but a small proportion of the 210,000 miles of railroad 

 operated in the United States. 



A study of the channels of consumption of iron can best 

 be made by considering the forms into which iron is made 

 for ultimate consumption. Pig iron, which the United States 

 is now making at the rate of nearly 22,000,000 gross tons 

 annually, is, as remarked at the outset, merely a raw material. 

 In its conversion into finished products there are impor- 

 tant losses, which are only partially made up by the use 

 of scrap or old material. A rate of production of 22,000,000 

 tons annually means only between 20,000,000 and 21,000,000 

 tons of raw material in which it leaves the rolling mill or 

 foundry. In a total production of 22,000,000 tons of pig 

 iron about 5,000,000 tons will be of grades which are used 

 in iron foundries for the production of iron castings, including 

 cast iron pipe and castings for machinery, railroad rolling 

 stock and a great variety of small uses. Something like lialf 

 a million tons will be refined before casting, and result in 

 steel castings for somewhat similar uses. Roughly speaking, 

 steel is simply pig iron with the bulk of the impurities re- 

 moved and a small percentage of manganese or other alloy 

 metal added. Another half million tons, hardly more, of pig 

 iron will go through the puddling furnace and be converted 



