12 MONTANA : INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES 



the Pacific coast, should there be a shift of mill location because of a big western 

 and oriental market, it would iui>re likely to be the coast than to centers of 

 raw wool production, except for the coarser woolen goods. 



In many important manufacturing enterprises, skilhnl labor localized in cer- 

 tain communities prevents their decentralization. Sanitary pottery, for instance, 

 is entirely the work of skilled hands, and is localized exclusively in two eastern 

 cities. Electrical porcelain potteries, on the other hand, are largely made by 

 machines manned by semi-skilled labor, and are manufactured in a score of 

 scattered places. Though efforts are being made to standardize leather, lasts, 

 methods and internal factory transportation, the locale of shoe manufacturing 

 is still largely dominated by the domicile of skilled labor. The influence of 

 skilled labor, however, in determining factory locations, is rapidly waning. Trans- 

 ference of skill to perfected machines, the sub-di\"ision of labor with specalizaton 

 upon simplified tasks is shifting the emphasis from skilled to unskilled or semi- 

 skilled labor. This labor is mobile and seeks the factory. Examples of this in 

 Montana are found in the copper rod, wire and cable plant of the xVnaconda Cop- 

 per Mining Company at Great Falls, and in the sugar-beet factory at Billings. 

 New processes, in nmny instances, are overcoming the special influences that 

 have confined industries to certain localities. Perhaps the most notable illustra- 

 trations, and those which bode the most good to an industrial 

 Fuel and future for Montana, have to do with sources of fuel and power. 

 Power Are In the iron and steel industry, Pittsburgh's virtual monopoly of 

 Big Assets the best coke has been overcome by the invention of ovens that 

 take ordinary grades of coal and, by saving the by-products, turn 

 out a good quality coke at a moderate price. The electric furnace is growing in favor 

 for smelting. The United States Geological Survey predicts that "the present geo- 

 graphic distribution of the centers of production of pig iron may be modified by the in- 

 creasing use of electric smelting and by the discovery of processes for making metal- 

 lurgic coke from coals that have not heretofore been classed as coking coals."' This 

 prediction may be realized in an invention by a Montana man, who has been 

 granted patent rights on an electric furnace, which it is claimed will overcome the 

 lack of suitable coke for the reduction of the big deposits of Montana iron ore. 



A ton of coke is required for the -production of one ton of pig iron. Coke 

 suitable for iron manufacture costs $15 a ton in Montana against $3.00 in Ohio, 

 thus penalizing iron production in Montana $12 a ton. The basis of the patent 

 is a process by which the fuel is kept entirely separate from the ore, preventing 

 contact of impurities with the molten ircm. Further, this new furnace consumes 

 only one-tenth as much electricity in producing a ton of pig iron as do the electric 

 furnaces that have been perfected in Norway and Sweden. The inventor believes 

 his furnace is capable of development to a point that will make possible the 

 manufacture of iron and steel in Montana to supply the markets mid-distant to 

 the eastern steel plants. 



Use of the electric furnace is growing in other branches of the iron and steel 

 industry, in making ferromanganeso and spiegeleisen, the former being an alloy 

 largely used in open-hearth steel from which structural shapes, sheets, bars and 

 wire are made, and the latter an alloy in Bessemer steel from which rails, 

 forgings, etc., are made. The Geological Survey states that "the metallurgy of 

 chromite has apparently been so developed in the hydroelectric process as to 

 utilize to advantage relatively low-grade ores such as are most abundant in the 

 United States .... and the further development of that process would greatly 

 diminish the handicap of long transportation." Chromite and manganese, next to 

 iron, are the most important resources Montana has for an iron and steel in- 

 dustry. 



