132 JOHN O'DONNELL 



into wrought iron, differing from steel in many small respects, 

 but chiefly in that manganese has not been added. 



The remainder of the 22,000,000 tons of pig iron, say 

 16,000,000 tons, will be made into steel, to be rolled into 

 finished forms. The losses in the operations and refining 

 and rolling, diminished by the scrap added, will result in 

 the production of approximately 15,000,000 tons of steel 

 products, known as finished products from the standpoint 

 of the steel mill. They are the finished product of the rolling 

 mill, in that their further adaptation to the use of mankind 

 is not accomplished by any rolling process, but by other oper- 

 ations. The structural shapes as rolled must be sheared, 

 punched, etc., the wire rods must be drawn into wire through 

 dies, the skein must be bent to a circular shape and welded 

 to produce pipes and so on. For past years it would be possi- 

 ble to give an accurate presentation of the tonnage involved 

 in the different forms into which the iron products have been 

 converted, since excellent statistics are available, but the 

 present rate of production of pig iron is fully one fifth greater 

 than has ever been maintained for a calendar year, and it 

 cannot be told with complete certainty how the different 

 finished steel lines are sharing in the increase. A careful 

 though necessarily tentative estimate of current production 

 of rolled steel is given in the following table : 



Gross tons. 



Plates and sheets 3,200,000 



Rails 2,500,000 



Wire rods 1,800,000 



Structural shapes 1,500,000 



Slvelp 1,000,000 



Bars, hoops, and miscellaneous 5,000,000 



Total 15,000,000 



A table similarly compiled to show the relative consump- 

 tion fifteen or twenty years ago would look very different. 

 The year 1887, for instance, marked the culmination of the 

 great railroad building movement, and, while the production 

 of pig iron in that year was only 6,417,148 gross tons, or 

 only 29 per cent of the present rate, there were made 2,139,640 

 gross tons of rails, which is quite comparable to the present 

 rate of production, while the production of plates and sheets 

 was less than 625,000 gross tons, about one fifth the present 



