IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY. 



ITALY. 



451 



chiefly to improved practice and more ma- 

 chinery in the established works. The first 

 Bessemer steel made in any State south of West 

 Virginia was at Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 

 April, 1886, and a large Bessemer steel plant 

 is now there erecting for the manufacture of 

 steel rails. The erection of plants for the 

 Clapp - Griffiths process, described as "first- 

 cousin to the Bessemer process," has increased 

 from one in 1884, to six completed works in 

 1886, with two more now in course of erec- 

 tion ; and the annual ingot capacity of the eight 

 works will be 200,000 net tons, an increase 

 from 5,000 tons two years ago. The steel is 

 principally used for nail plate and wire rods, 

 and the works are located in three different 

 States. In September, 1884, there were thirty- 

 five open-hearth steel works in the country, 

 with three erecting, and in August, 1886, there 

 were forty-two works, with seven more erect- 

 ing. The product has increased from 550,000 

 net tons in 1884 to 660,000 tons as estimated 

 in 1886. The Bessemer industry and the open- 

 hearth industry are located each in eleven 

 States, or together in fourteen different States. 

 The crucible-steel industry can scarcely com- 

 pete with the more modern methods, and has 

 declined from forty-one works, with an annual 

 capacity of 115,000 net tons of ingots, in 1884, 

 to forty works, with an annual capacity of 

 110,000 tons of ingots, in 1886. Crucible- steel 

 is used especially for fine springs and for fine 

 tools, with or without a cutting edge, and al- 

 ways will be in demand. But many manufact- 

 urers are adding to their crucible-works open- 

 hearth furnaces, which produce steel that is 

 growing in favor for locomotive-boilers and 

 fire-boxes, locomotive and car springs, and ag- 

 ricultural machinery. Cheap steel is also in- 

 terfering to some extent with the forges that 

 make wrought-iron directly from the ore. Only 

 a few hundred tons of hammered bar-iron are 

 now made in this country, mostly in the mount- 

 ainous districts of some of the Southern States, 

 and the finished iron now produced is almost 

 entirely made by rolling. In the past six years 

 thirty States and one Territory have had mills 

 for rolling iron, and this branch of industry is 

 more widely distributed throughout the Union 

 than the production of pig-iron. Yet the total 

 production of all kinds of rolled iron, including 

 iron rails, declined from 2,493,831 tons in 

 1882, to 1,804,526 tons in 1885, as several 

 States have stopped rolling rails altogether since 

 the general substitution of steel for iron rails. 

 Seventeen States in the Union make cut nails, 

 which, before 1883, were made only of iron, 

 but since that year the increase in the product 

 of steel nails has been from 18,224 kegs of 100 

 pounds to 1,823,127 kegs in 1885. Other iron 

 and steel industries now in successful operation 

 in the United States are twenty-five locomo- 

 tive works, eighty -five car- works, seventy- six 

 car-axle works, one hundred and eight car- 

 wheel works, twenty- five wrought-iron-pipe 

 works, and thirty-one cast-iron-pipe works. 



The manufactories of all kinds producing iron 

 and steel goods are innumerable. Sixty- eight 

 rolling-mills and steel-works, most of them in 

 Pennsylvania, use natural gas as fuel, and six- 

 teen more are now preparing to use it. 



ITALY, a kingdom in Southern Europe. The 

 executive power is exercised by the sovereign, 

 through ministers responsible to Parliament. 

 The legislature is composed of a Senate, the 

 members of which are nominated by the King, 

 and a House of Deputies, who are elected by 

 ballot, on departmental tickets, by citizens who 

 can read and write and pay 20 lire of taxes, in 

 the proportion of one deputy to 57,000 in- 

 habitants. The legislative period is five years, 

 but Parliament may be dissolved at any time 

 by the King, who must order new elections, 

 and convoke a new Parliament within four 

 months. 



The reigning sovereign is Umberto I, born 

 March 14, 1844, who succeeded his father, 

 Vittorio Emanuele, Jan. 9, 1878. 



The ministry, constituted June 29, 1885, is 

 composed as follows : President of the Coun- 

 cil and Minister of the Interior, Agostino De- 

 pretis ; Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count C. 

 F. Nicolis di Robilant ; Minister of Public In- 

 struction, Michele Coppino ; Minister of Fi- 

 nance and the Treasury, Agostino Magliani ; 

 Minister of War, Gen. Cesare Ricotti-Magnani ; 

 Minister of Marine, Benedetto Brin ; Minister 

 of Justice and Ecclesiastical Affairs, Diego Ta- 

 jani; Minister of Public Works, Francesco 

 Genala; Minister of Agriculture, Industry, and 

 Commerce, Bernardino Grimaldi. 



Area and Population. The area of the king- 

 dom, as computed by the Military Geographical 

 Institute, is 110,620 square miles, of which 

 9,935 square miles belong to Sicily, and 9,293 

 to Sardinia and the minor islands. The popu- 

 lation, on Dec. 31, 1885, was officially esti- 

 mated at 29,699,785 persons. The density of 

 population varies from 965 per square mile in 

 the department of Milano to 63 in Sassari, Sar- 

 dinia. The number of marriages in 1885 was 

 233,931; of births, 1,165,258 ; of deaths, 826,- 

 505 ; excess of births, 338,753. The births and 

 deaths include 39,288 still-born. 



The number of emigrants in 1885 was 157,- 

 193, of whom 78,232 went to various European 

 countries 5,435 to Algeria, Tunis, and Egypt, 

 13,096 to the United States and Canada, 40,054 

 to the Argentine Republic, 19,340 to other 

 American countries, and 1,036 to Asia, Oce- 

 ania, and Africa. According to the census of 

 1881, 16 per cent, of the men over thirty years 

 of age, and 23 per cent, of the women over 

 twenty, are unmarried. About half of the 

 population are dependent on agriculture, stock- 

 raising, and forestry. There were 8,246,721 

 persons engaged directly in agricultural occu- 

 pations, 244,452 in the rearing of cattle, and 

 59,651 in the forest industry. In Piedmont, 

 Liguria, the Abruzzi, and Sardinia many farm- 

 ers own their land ; in middle Italy land is 

 rented on shares ; and in Lombardy, Venetia, 



