BROWN    IRON    ORES    OF    RUSSELLVILLE    DISTRICT,  ALA.  159 
Besides  these  quarries  a  new  opening  and  crusher  have  been  estab- 
hed  by  the  Alabama-Tennessee  Stone  Company  about  1,000  feet 
st  of  the  railroad  station  at  Darlington.  The  beds  exposed  here 
e  nearly  flat-lying  oolitic  limestone,  and  the  product,  250  to  300 
ns  a  day,  is  shipped  to  the  Sloss-Sheffield  Steel  and  Iron  Company's 
rnaces  at  Sheffield. 
Production  of  brown  ore. — As  a  producer  of  brown  ore  Alabama 
nks  first  among  the  iron-ore  producing  States.  In  1905  there  were 
1,561  long  tons  of  brown  ore  mined  in*  Alabama,  and  of  this  the 
ussellville  district  produced  279,373  long  tons,  or*over  36  per  cent, 
hile  some  of  the  Russellville  ore  is  smelted  at  Chattanooga,  prob- 
»ly  an  equivalent  quantity  from  the  Iron  City-Pinkney  district  of 
mnessee  is  shipped  to  Sheffield,  so  that  the  production  at  Russell- 
lle  fairly  represents  the  tonnage  of  brown  ore  locally  smelted. 
Iron  making. — It  is  a  matter  of  historical  interest  that  probably 
e  first  furnace  erected  in  Alabama  was  built  in  1818  on  the  north 
jik  of  Cedar  Creek  in  sec.  10,  T.  7  S.,  R.  12  W.,  a  short  distance  east 
the  present  Alabama-Virginia  Company's  workings.  Surface  ore 
is  fed  to  this  primitive  charcoal  furnace  and  was  made  into  cast  and 
alleable  iron.  The  furnace  seems  to  have  been  abandoned  about 
127.     Sixty  years  later,  iron  making  was  revived  in  this  region,  but 
a  better  location  in  respect  to  water  supply  and  transporation 
utes.  In  1887,  or  shortly  afterwards,  the  three  stacks  of  the  Shef- 
ld  Coal  and  Iron  Company  and  the  two  now  controlled  by  the 
oss-Sheffield  Steel  and  Iron  Company  were  built  at  Sheffield,  and 
Le  furnace,  inactive  in  1906,  also  controlled  by  the  latter  company, 
is  erected  at  Florence,  across  the  river.  All  these  furnaces  use  coke 
t*  fuel. 
The  six  furnaces  mentioned  above  produce  mainly  a  foundry  pig 
>n  that  is  rather  high  in  phosphorus,  but  also  some  mill  pig  iron. 
|e  practice  is  to  run  either  entirely  on  local  brown  ore  and  lime- 
3ne,  or,  if  the  silica  is  too  high — above  18  per  cent,  for  instance — the 
irden  is  usually  composed  of  three-fourths  local  brown  ore  and  one- 
urth  Birmingham  hard  red  ore,  with  the  requisite  amount  of  limestone, 
lis  combination  reduces  the  phosphorus  content  of  the  pig  iron,  and 
is  found  that  the  Russellville  ores  produce  a  pig  with  an  appreciably 
wer  content  of  phosphorus  than  that  introduced  by  the  southern 
mnessee  ores  (compare  analyses  on  p.  154).  The  Tennessee  ore, 
>wever,  carries  a  slightly  lower  and  more  uniform  content  of  man- 
Jiese  than  the  Russellville  ore. 
As  has  been  noted  heretofore,  the  Sheffield  furnaces  must  freight 
eir  brown  ore  and  limestone  18  to  20  miles  and  are  still  less  favor- 
>ly  situated  in  relation  to  red  ore  and  fuel  supply,  since  they  obtain 
eir  red  ore  from  Birmingham  and  the  coke  consumed  comes  largely 
