Photograph from Carnegie Steel Company 



A DROP HAMMER FORGING AN AXLE FOR A RAILROAD CAR 



The hand that turns the axle rules the commercial world. Industry waits upon the railroad, 

 and the railroad waits upon the mill which makes its equipment. 



As fast as they are filled the ladles are 

 swung- out over the ingot molds and the 

 liquid steel is run into them and allowed 

 to cool and take its solid form. It is as 

 if water were poured into molds and set 

 in a refrigerating machine to freeze into 

 blocks of ice. The only difference is that 

 the "freezing" point of steel is away 

 above the boiling point of water. 



There are two other important types 

 of steel furnaces — the crucible furnace 

 and the electric furnace. In both of them 

 the idea is to keep all hurtful gases and 

 other impurities out and to regulate the 

 addition of alloys and oxygen destroyers 

 to a nicety. In a crucible furnace the 

 metal is placed in graphite clay pots, 

 covers are put over them, and the pots 

 subjected to great heat. Silica is grad- 

 ually absorbed out of the clay in the pots 

 and transformed into silicon by coming 

 Into contact with the carbon in the steel. 

 The silicon in its turn absorbs the oxygen 



and thus quiets the frothing, foaming 

 contents of the kettle. 



CROSS-ROADS IN THE STEEL INDUSTRY 



The electric furnace acts in much the 

 same way, its heat being so pure that 

 there is no necessity of putting the steel 

 in covered pots to keep out gases and 

 other impurities. An electric arc, estab- 

 lished between huge electrodes and the 

 surface of the slag, produces the heat in 

 such a furnace. By varying the mate- 

 rials used in the formation of the slag 

 any impurity can be wooed off and the 

 glowing steel left as pure as crystal. The 

 alloys are then mixed with the steel and 

 it is made fit for any use desired. It is 

 drawn off into ladles and poured into 

 ingot molds, where it hardens, ready to 

 be worked up into those things that con- 

 stitute the last word in fine steel. 



As all roads in the iron industry lead 

 up to pig iron, so all roads in the field 



154 



