CENTER OF STEEL WORLD 169 



of the spectator, constitutes the })last furnace, is in reality 

 only the outer shell of the monster melting pot. There is 

 a hning of fire brick, and, where the heat is most intense, a 

 sheathing of water helps in the imprisonment. To appease 

 an insatia])le appetite, the furnace must be fed every quarter 

 of an hour or so, and one of the larger size structures will, in 

 a working day of ordinary' length, eat up from three to four 

 train loads of fuel and iron ore. 



The tapping of the furnace is the dramatic feature of 

 attendance upon one of these artificial springs of the manu- 

 facturing world. An incision is made low down in the side 

 of the furnace, at the veiy bottom of the tank of moUen iron, 

 and there pours forth in a steady stream, as from a pumping 

 spout, a semi-liquid colorless mass, glowing so fiercely that 

 the unaccustomed eye cannot gaze upon it for long at a time. 

 The dark figures moving about quickly and silently in the 

 gloom— and numerically they seem hopelessly madequate 

 to cope with such a monster — must think rapidly and act 

 even more hurriedly when once the dam of fire clay has been 

 broken and the rivulet of fire is let loose. 



It looks like a sluggish mass, this suddenly descending 

 flood of hot iron, but in reality it moves with insidious rapidity. 

 The close observer might study its course as he would that 

 of a river cutting a new channel ; see a shower of sparks thro\\Ti 

 up in lieu of spray when it strikes an obstacle; watch it swirl 

 in eddies around some slight obstruction or be turned aside 

 by some large one. To the workmen whose duty it is to hold 

 in subjugation the contents of the quickly emptied measure 

 this is the supreme hour of opportunity, and it is a brief one. 

 The flow from the furnace could be stopped only with diffi- 

 culty, even in an emergencj^ and so the toilers must note 

 closely the idios>Ticrasies of the traveling iron, and exert all 

 watchfulness that it be guided to the channels into which it 

 is desired to go, or a heavy loss will result. 



The men who work at the base of one of these present 

 day iron making vessels face a daily peril fully as great as 

 any that ever came to the laborers up aloft, even in the era 

 of the general use of the old fashioned furnace. Under ex- 

 isting conditions not only must the working men have their 



