CHAPTER XXXVII. 

 COSTS AND STATISTICS. 



Costs of Manufacture of Portland Cement. 



To the popular mind the manufacture of Portland cement is, though 

 somewhat mysterious in process, so remarkably cheap as to be a very 

 attractive investment. This opinion is carefully fostered for selfish 

 purposes by many so-called "cement experts" and "cement engineers", 

 men of a class comparable with the "mining experts" who infest the 

 Western mining districts and differing in degree only, not in kind, from 

 the more humble green-goods man of the East. Michigan, especially, 

 has been the prey of this class of cement experts, -for in no other State 

 has so much money been sunk by comparatively poor people in the 

 erection of unprofitable Portland-cement plants. Many of these com- 

 panies have been reorganized and are now on a firm basis, but the amount 

 of money thrown away by ignorant investors, misled by lying estimates 

 and prospectuses, has been enormous. 



The truth of the situation appears to be, on the contrary, that there 

 is a very small margin of profit for most of the plants now engaged in 

 Portland-cement manufacture. It is probable, indeed, that the per- 

 centage of profit in the lime or natural-cement industries is far greater 

 than in the average Portland- cement plant. 



In the following pages some estimate of the cost of Portland-cement 

 manufacture under various conditions will be given. 



Factors of cost. The total cost of manufacture of Portland cement 

 may be subdivided as follows: 



A. Fixed charges. 



(a) Interest on cost of land and quarries; 

 (6) Interest on cost of construction and erection; 

 ( (c) Interest on reserve capital invested; 



(d) Allowance for sinking fund; 



(e) Insurance and taxes. 



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