CARNEGIE ENTERPRISES 151 



34 per cent of the open hearth output of the United States, 

 which was nearly equal to the total output of the entire country 

 only fourteen years ago. 



This remarkable development, it may be observed obiter, 

 is a significant sign of the times in the steel industry, denoting 

 as it does the increasing preference for open hearth over 

 Bessemer steel in cases where the use of either is optional. 

 For the last few years the production of Bessemer steel has 

 increased 25 per cent and of open hearth 31.5 per cent. The 

 introduction of the pressed steel freight car partly accounts 

 for this, but the increase of production is due primarily to 

 the improvement in manufacturing practice and in the quality 

 of product. It may be added that the open hearth process 

 will continue to gain on the Bessemer, and many believe 

 that the latter is going slowly, step by step, the way of the 

 puddling furnace; but the time for numbering its days of 

 usefulness is still remote. Ho-wever, the additions to pro- 

 ductive capacity now building and projected in the United 

 States are in the great majority of cases for open hearth steel. 

 In England the advance of the open hearth furnace has been 

 even more marked than ia the United States. The change, 

 it may be said, has been riccelerated in that country largely 

 by reason of the failing ore supply, with the consequent short- 

 age of Bessemer iron, necet^sitating recourse to the open hearth 

 process, which uses scrap .iron and steel, the supply of which 

 is comparatively abundant. The Bessemer process lost first 

 place in the British steel iadustry some years ago, the output 

 being only 38 per cent of the total steel product. Bessemer 

 still holds first place in the United States, the output amount- 

 ing to 72 per cent of the total, which, however, is a loss of 

 10 per cent in six years. 



The Carnegie industrial system, which now embraces the 

 mining and transportation of ore by rail and water and the 

 manufacturing of coke, is the growth of years and repre- 

 sents the enterprise of the man who laid the foundation. 

 In this respect it is unlike many contemporaneous organiza- 

 tions recently formed in the steel trade, comprising numerous 

 small concerns originally competitive and created by many 

 individuals. 



