CENTER OF STEEL WORLD 167 



the classification of tlie most useful of metals, whatever is to 

 be its ultimate form and character, emanates from this com- 

 mon source, where are assembled the various substances which 

 combine to give the material its fundamental properties. The 

 ore, fresh from the mines, is poured into the monster flame 

 lined tower along with the fuel — coal or coke or charcoal — 

 and a proportion of limestone designed to form a chemical 

 combination with the impurities in the ore so that they may 

 be eliminated. After tons upon tons of the various ingredi- 

 ents have been dumped into the seething tank, apparently 

 without the slightest effect upon the blinding intensity of the 

 white heat, a blast of hot air, with the power of a hurricane, 

 is forced through the great molten mass. In a remote sense 

 it is the same principle which is employed in the blacksmith's 

 forge. When this gigantic fanning of the flames has been 

 carried on for several hours, the contents of the furnace are 

 dra^\Ti off, first the refuse which the fiery bath has concen- 

 trated, and then the liquid iron. 



Within the last half century the march of progress has 

 witnessed many alterations in the design of the blast furnace 

 itself, and still more changes in the methods governing the 

 handling of its product. So recent have these revolutions 

 been that the steps of advancement may be traced by a glance 

 at the various classes of furnaces yet in service in the vicinity 

 of Pittsburg. There is still in use an example of the old stone 

 furnace, fed by a large force of wood cutters, and numerous 

 indeed are the representatives of that type of structure which, 

 until a few years ago, constituted the approved apparatus for 

 iron melting. To the latter, as to the gigantic furnaces of the 

 present day, the various classes of raw material come by train 

 loads — the ore from the Lake Superior mines, the coke from 

 Connellsville or West Virginia, and the limestone from Ohio. 



The mode of operating one of these older furnaces, al- 

 though it was the accepted method only a few years ago, seems 

 crude enough now. Workmen with shovels transfer the fuel 

 and raw material from the railroad cars to novel iron wheel- 

 barrows which are loaded on a rickety looking elevator that 

 creeps creakingly up the outside of the furnace to the top, a 

 hundred feet in the air. Perched up on this chimney like 



