134 JOHN O'DONNELL 



sheets laid together have largely given way to solid castings 

 for fields and armatures, the efficiency being thereby greatly 

 increased. This has given rise to a special product known 

 as electric or magnetic sheets running into a very large ton- 

 nage. Sheet steel furniture, particularly fifing cabinets, is no 

 longer a novelty. 



Of plates, or material thicker than 16 gauge, the avenues 

 of consumption are equally varied, but a few stand out with 

 more prominence than is the case with sheets. The chief 

 line of consumption of steel plates at present is one which 

 was unknown a decade ago and half a dozen years ago was 

 one more of promise than of fulfillment, the steel railroad 

 car. In a few brief years there have been built more than 

 100,000 all steel freight cars, and a third as many steel under- 

 framed cars, the underframing being of plates. The all steel 

 cars built have consumed more than 2,000,000 gross tons of 

 iron and steel, over half this tonnage being plates. At the 

 present time the car plants are turning out more than 200 

 all steel cars daily, a rate which, if maintained for 300 vv^ork- 

 ing days, would involve the consumption of 750,000 tons of 

 plates. 



Plates are used morethan for merly in the steel frame- 

 work of large buildings, columns and girders built up of plates 

 being used where formerly structural sections were employed. 



Enormous gas tanks are now built, the one recently 

 completed for the city of Milwaukee by a Pittsburg firm hav- 

 ing a storage capacity of 6,000,000, cubic feet and requiring 

 3,500 tons of steel, chiefly plates. The second largest of 

 such tanks is in Allegheny City, for natural gas, with a capacity 

 of 5,000,000 cubic feet. Pipe for low pressure water fines 

 is made of plates riveted together. 



Passing over the item of rails we come to wire rods, of 

 which about 1,800,000 tons are being made annuafiy. The 

 rods are drawn through dies into wire for the widest variety 

 of uses to which any steel product is put. Wire nails are 

 common. The United States is making from 10,000,000 

 to 12,000,000 kegs annually of 100 pounds each and last year 

 exported nearly 1,500,000 kegs. Indeed, wire products are 

 the most generally exported of any steel product. Of wire, 



