742 Trans actions of the American Institute. 



elsewhere in the State of Alabama. There is a further singular rela- 

 tion between these two great deposits of Alabama and Missouri. 

 This makes a cold-short iron, that of Iron Maintain a red-short ; 

 hence, to make a neutral iron they must be united. 



The old Bed Mountain Iron Company's furnaces are located five 

 miles from Birmingham, on the S. and N. R. It., and in a few yards 

 of that road. These furnaces are forty-two feet high, and have twelve 

 and one-half feet boshes. One has never been used ; the other had 

 been in blast eight months when the works were burned by General 

 "Wilson. They are well built of excellent sandstone, and the com- 

 pany own large bodies of iron ore and coal lands, as well as 7,000 

 acres for charcoal. I shall use these furnaces as an illustration. They 

 can be started so as to make each twenty tons per day. From the 

 company's 12,000 acres of coal land, also immediately on the line of 

 the railroad, coal can be mixed and burned into coke at $1.10 per ton. 

 Four tons of coal to two tons of coke is $4.40 ; for railroad transpor- 

 tation and handling add sixty cents, and we have for a ton of pig : 



Two tons of coke : $5 50 



Two and one-half tons ore 2 50 



Limestone 50 



Interest and general expenses 3 00 



Labor, etc. .• *: 5 00 



$16 00 



Whether this estimate be correct as to interest on capital, etc., I 

 leave old iron men to judge ; as to the other items, it is not below 

 cost. But while iron can be made here so cheaply, the great market 

 for it is north and west ; hence we must add to the above, say, ten 

 dollars for transportation. Suppose a sale at thirty-two dollars, and 

 with furnaces making forty tons per day, there should be a profit of 

 full $120,000 for the 300 days usually allotted to the yearly working 

 of a furnace ; certainly enough to induce capital to come here, even 

 if the product has to be sent north for sale. The transportation has 

 been put at ten dollars per ton, because that is the price stated by 

 Mr. Barney, of the S. K. and D. R. R. ; but Mr. Shaw, of the S. and 

 IS". R. R., says it can be done for less if sent in quantity. I do not 

 expect some of my Pennsylvania friends to believe these statements. 

 All I ask for proof is, that they go and see the country, and they will 

 say I have not told half of its wonderful wealth. East Tennessee has 

 vastly the advantage in the cheapness and ease with which her coal 

 can be mined, but the iron ores of Alabama are surpassed by no 

 region of the known world. 



