PRACTICAL PAPERS—PRODUCTION OF IRON. 
34e5 
ore is lean and the quality of the iron inferior, but by the ap¬ 
plication of a high order of skill, a quality is produced suf¬ 
ficiently good for the ordinary purposes of commerce, and at a 
cost below that of any other locality in the world. The con¬ 
sequence has been that, since the erection of the first blast 
furnace in 1850, 125 furnaces have been erected, and fourteen 
more are now in process of erection; twenty-seven rolling 
mills and a large number of foundries and iron ship-building 
yards are in operation, and cities have grown up with a rapid¬ 
ity and to a size that would strike even a western pioneer with 
surprise. The present production exceeds a million of tons 
per annum, and it is difficult indeed to assign any limits to its 
future growth. But there is one limitation which applies to 
the whole question of the production of British iron, and that 
is, her ability to supply coal on the scale of consumption 
already beyond 100,000,000 tons per annum. This question 
has received the serious attention of the British association 
for the advancement of science, and Mr. Griadstone, by one 
of those happy ellipses characteristic of men of genius, has 
coupled the extinction of the national debt with the exhaus¬ 
tion of the supplies of fuel, evidently acting under the idea 
that an honest man ought to pay his debts while his capital 
lasts. It is presumed, however, that there is still margin 
enough for the addition of the “ Alabama claims ” to the sum 
total of indebtedness, without seriously interfering with the 
means of payment which the coal-fields afford. 
So far as the production of iron is concerned, and so long, 
at least, as any human being now in existence may have an 
interest in the question, I see no good reason to doubt why 
England should not maintain her position as the source from 
which one-half the required amount will be obtained; but 
beyond this I do not think she can or will go, from the intrin¬ 
sic difficulties of producing the required supply of materials 
and labor, without an enormous increase of cost. There will, 
therefore, remain a very large deficiency, which must be sup¬ 
plied from some other source, and that source can only be the 
United States of America, for in no other quarter of the 
