306 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



June 



of water-carriage for rail-carriage would 

 reduce the consumption of iron by three- 

 fourths to seven-eighths in this department. 

 At the same time the consumption of coal 

 for motive power would be reduced 50 per 

 cent to 75 per cent, with a corresponding 

 reduction in the coal required for smelting. 

 Xo single step open to us to-day would do 

 more to check the drain on iron and coal 

 than the substitution of water-carriage for 

 rail-carriage wherever practicable, and the 

 careful adjustment of the one to the other 

 throughout the country. 



The next great use of iron is in con- 

 struction, especially of buildings and 

 bridges. Fortunately the use of concrete, 

 simple and reinforced, is already reducing 

 the consumption of structural steel. The 

 materials for cement and concrete abound 

 in every part of the country; and while the 

 arts of making ar.d using them are still in 

 their infancy, the products promise to ! 'C- 

 come superior to steel and stone in strength, 

 durability, convenience, and economy of 

 use. The cement industry is growing lap- 

 idly, largely in connection with the making 

 of iron and steel so that the substitution of 

 the new material will not involve abandon- 

 ment of plants or loss of invested capital. 

 The hitherto useless slag hills, of which 

 many may be seen around blast furnaces, are 

 now being made directly into cement and 

 yielding high profits. It has become H by- 

 product, the extra cost scarcely more than 

 the former cost of piling the slag avvay. 



A large current use of steel of the highest 

 -quality is for battleships, ordnance, pro- 

 jectiles and small arms. Happily there 

 are signs of an awakening of t' e public 

 conscience and of the sense of national 

 righteousness, whereby civilized nations 

 must be led to adopt those moral standards 

 which already regulate individual conduce ; 

 the world is soon to learn that war is not 

 only too disgracefully inhuman but too 

 wasteful to be tolerated, and this serious 

 drain upon our iron ores will cease. 



A promising mode of reducing iron con- 

 sumption is opening through the develop- 

 ment of iron alloys. The making of steel 

 was first an accident, and long a secret 

 "art and mystery ;" it was not until after 

 the Republic was founded that steel was 

 recognized as an alloy of iron and carbon, 

 and it was only within the memory of men 

 now present that nickel, silver, zircon, tung- 

 sten, and other materials were scientifically 

 alloyed with iron to yield those protean 

 modern steels adapted to an ever-increasing 

 range of uses. And the end is not yet ; 

 every expert knows that metal alloying is 

 in its infancy. 



Among the most abundant materials of 

 the earth-crust are silica, alumina, and car- 

 bon compounds, all with more or less af- 

 finity for iron; already the alloying of car 

 with iron has revolutionized the indus- 

 trial world, and of late the alloying of siHca 

 with iron (in "ferro-silicon," etc.) gives 



promise not only of yielding a superior 

 metal but of permitting reduction of silice- 

 ous ores hitherto unworkable, while alum- 

 ina has been alloyed with iron in a useful 

 way. It is not too much to hope that re- 

 search into the ultimate constitution and 

 relation of these commoner materials will 

 yield both better and cheaper metals than 

 any thus far produced, and that newly dif 

 covered alloys will help to relieve the pres- 

 sure on our mines of iron, copper, zinc, sil- 

 ver, and lead. 



We now come to coal. How shall we 

 save that? Current uses or rather current 

 wastes offer suggestions : The most se- 

 rious waste arises from imperfect com- 

 bustion in furnace and firebox. The waste 

 of 90 per cent and over of the potential en- 

 ergy of the fuel in power-production 

 which, however, we know not yet how to 

 avoid is appalling in itself, while the 

 smoke and soot from the chimneys becloud 

 and befoul cities, poison human lungs and 

 prepare the way for pneumonia (one of our 

 worst modern scourges), and initiate all 

 manner of additional wastes. We have al- 

 ready learned that internal-combustion en- 

 gines and gas-producers double or triple 

 the power per unit of coal, obviate the 

 smoke nuisance and also permit the use of 

 lignite, culm, slack, and inferior co'dls 

 in fact, so far as power-production by re- 

 ciprocal engines is concerned, the days of 

 steam seem to be numbered, although de- 

 velopment of substitutes is still in its in- 

 fancy. The consumption of substitutes is 

 '-till in its infancy. The consumption of 

 coal in smelting is necessarily large ; of late 

 the loss is reduced by using the furnace- 

 gases for power, and by making by-pro- 

 ducts ; yet the chief saving must lie in econ- 

 omy in the use of metals. Much of our 

 coke-making is still extravagant; some 

 ovens use the gases, and all should do J-o 

 without delay if necessary, under State 

 regulation, since the people have some rights 

 both in the preservation of their heritage 

 and in maintaining the purity of the ai'- 

 they breathe. 



Next to imperfect combustion, the chief 

 waste of coal arises in mining. The early 

 colliers saw no value in coal in the ground, 

 any more than early millers saw value in the 

 flow of the stream ; to them coal acquired 

 value only by the labor of mining it, just 

 as to the miller the stream acquired value 

 only as head was produced by the labor of 

 building dam and mill. So the coal taken 

 out in the British and German collieries 

 was a sort of treasure trove; that left in 

 the ground was nobody's loss. Likewise 

 in early American mining the coal mined 

 merely yielded a return for labor, and the 

 pillars and slack and poor coal left in the 

 ground were nobody's affair ; it was years 

 after mining began before coal lands were 

 thought to have any other value than as 

 wood-lands or farm-lands. Thus the in- 

 credibly wasteful methods were natural 



