ELECTROCHEMISTRY 163 



being made, and made and sold at a profit. We will hasten 

 to admit that the furnaces are small, that they are in Cali- 

 fornia and Sweden, where fuel is expensive and power is 

 cheap, that a great deal of money has been sunk in bring- 

 ing them to their present condition ; but after all has been 

 admitted, the fact remains that electric-furnace produc- 

 tion of pig iron is not a chimera, but an accomplished fact. 

 Pittsburg has been able to boast that she "could manu- 

 facture a ton of pig iron and put it down anywhere in the 

 world cheaper than it could be there produced." That 

 may be still true of the kind of pig iron which Pittsburg is 

 able to make, but there are grades and qualities of pig iron 

 (Swedish charcoal pig iron, for instance) which are still 

 imported into this country and sold at double the price of 

 our domestic pig iron. And, in the country where that 

 charcoal pig is slowly, laboriously and skilfully made, the 

 electric shaft furnace is able to compete with the charcoal 

 blast furnace in producing this high quality pig iron. Dr. 

 Haanel, of the Canadian Department of Mines, has in a 

 recent report given us the most reliable information about 

 the running of this furnace. The construction is peculiar, 

 and still somewhat experimental, the full power for which 

 the furnace was designed has not yet been available for 

 running it, the workmen are new to their tasks, the over- 

 seers are still learning, the irregularities in the running 

 are not yet all overcome, and many of the minor details 

 are yet being adjusted. The furnace is still, in brief, 

 decidedly in the formative or experimental stage. Yet, not- 

 withstanding, Professor Odelstjerna, one of the most expert 

 of Swedish metallurgists, states that the cost of production 

 is $1.50 per ton less than in the Swedish blast furnaces. If 

 that is true now, it needs little gift of prophecy to figure 

 out at least $2.50 per ton saving when the furnace is 

 properly run. Three similar furnaces of greater capacity, 

 2,500 kilowatts each, are to be erected in Norway; three 

 similar ones are to be put up at Sault Ste. Marie, Canada. 

 These are only the forerunners we may be sure, of dozens 



