14 THE IRON ORES OF NICTAUX, AND 



The extent to which the manufacture of basic steel has been 

 carried in Germany may be gathered from the fact that in 1 894 

 the production of pig iron there was in round numbers 

 5,000,000 tons, of which nearly 50 per cent, was Thomas iron. 

 In England in 1894 the percentage was about 15. In the 

 United States matters are much as in England, indeed the 

 percentage of basic pig is less. Here, however, the conditions 

 are different. The cheap supplies of pure ore available at 

 Chicago, Cleveland, etc , from the iron mines of the Lake 

 Superior district, and a protective tariff, have permitted an 

 adherence to the firmly established Bessemer process But the 

 fact remains that in the markets open to the competition of the 

 world the cheap steel, low wages, and reasonable freights of the 

 German steamers, combine to enable them to undersell American 

 and English competitors. 



No metallurgical process during the past thirty years has 

 received more attention from the chemist and capitalist than 

 the relation of phosphorus to iron and steel. Interminable 

 researches on the part of chemists and analysts, costly experi- 

 ments, in which capital has lavishly poured out its money, have 

 combined to force from nature the secret of pure steel. As we 

 have seen, the iron ores of the world are divided, as regards 

 steel, into Bessemer and non-Bessemer, according to the propor- 

 tions of phosphorus present. 



Speaking in round numbers of the 12,000,000 tons of steel 

 made in 1893, about 75 per cent, are made of ores that contain 

 not more than .07 of phosphorus to the 100 parts of iron. The 

 remaining 25 per cent, are made from ores containing from .10 

 to 2.50 per cent, of phosphorus. 



The principle governing both processes of steel making are 

 based on the fact, practically correct, that all the phosphorus in 

 the ore smelted in the blast furnace goes into the pig iron. It 

 thus happens that in the case of a Bessemer pig iron the phos- 

 phorus is a trace, while in the case of a basic pig iron it may 

 run as high as 2.5 per cent. 



Bearing these distinctions in mind, the question of the adap- 

 tability of the iron ores of any district in the Province of Nova 



