50 
STATE AGEICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 
iron made ‘ for sale,’ and merely stuck together, but by no 
means welded. Such rails are not used on English roads, but 
sold to us because they are cheap. It is by such rubbish as 
this, that iron rails as a class are judged, by those who would 
make us believe that solid steel or steel-headed rads are alone 
worth using. In 1868, some cheap English rails were laid in 
the St. Paul track, and in three months some of them were in 
the mill to be re-rolled, while rails from the Milwaukee mill, 
after one and a half years’ wear in the same place, are now as 
perfect, to all appearance, as on the day when they were put 
down. This is the difference between good and bad iron 
rails. 
“ The business of re-rolling is,'of course, limited by the sup¬ 
ply of old rails, and it would be some years before the supply 
would be sufficient to give the works enough to do. As the 
peculiar and valuable qualities of the Iron Ridge ore became 
known, and its extent and importance appreciated, it was 
thought that pig iron from it and the Lake Superior ore could 
be made in Milwaukee cheap enough to work it up into rails 
and pay a fair profit. If this could be done, a business of vast 
extent could be built up. The first step was, of course, the 
purchase of the property of the Swedes Iron Company, known 
as Iron Ridge. This was done in June, 1869, jointly with 
the Chicago and Wyandotte mills, by E. B. Ward, of Detroit 
* * * The stock of this company was increased 
from $350,000 to $800,000, and work commenced at once. To 
use the ore, blast furnaces must be built Arrangements were 
soon concluded with Mr. John Player (Mr. P. is the inventor 
• of Player’s hot-blast stove, and the builder of many of the 
best furnaces in England and on the continent), to design and 
. construct two furnaces in Milwaukee, capable of making 40 
tons of pig iron daily, each. The work has been carried on 
very rapidly, and in March, 1870, one of them will be ready 
for use. The second one will be finished during the coming 
summer. These furnaces are larger than any at present in 
blast in the country, and will be, it is confidently believed, 
second to none in the world, as regards convenience, rapidity. 
