IRON MANUFACTURE. 483 
River. The abundance and accessibility of these ores in the Hanging 
Rock region, and the generous supply of fuel in its extensive forests 
have furnished materials for an iron industry which was represented in 
Ohio in 1870 by 34 charcoal furnaces, producing 83,900 tons, and 3 
stonecoal and coke furnaces, producing 28,000 tons. 
The list of the furnaces, on pp. 456—458, showing their distribution 
and dates of establishment, will exhibit very well the progress and present 
importance of the iron industry of this region. The Hanging Rock 
charcoal iron has long possessed a very high reputation in all the 
western markets for its great purity and fitness for casting purposes 
demanding strength. Thus it has been the most favored iron at 
Pittsburgh for the fabrication of ordnance for the Government, and is 
now specially valued for the manufacture of car-wheels, and for pro- 
ducing superior grades of malleable iron. 
The disappearance of the forests under the demands of the fur- 
naces, which is now so apparent throughout the region, increases every 
year the difficulty of obtaining the necessary fuel, and marks very 
plainly the fate of the charcoal iron industry. The large amount of 
wood necessary to sustain a blast-furnace may be appreciated when it 
is known that some 13,000 cords of wood, the yield of 325 to 350 acres 
of forest land, are required per year for each furnace. And already a 
number of furnaces have been abandoned because of the scarcity of 
accessible timber, though the supply of ore has hardly been much 
diminished. The use of charcoal must yield, as it has done in all other 
parts of the State, and is now doing in other States, to the more ex- 
tended employment of mineral fuel. The manufacture of charcoal iron, 
nevertheless, will be a matter of considerable importance for some time 
to come, and the fine quality and high value of the iron will do much 
to foster its production. That the adoption of any systematic course of 
timber-growing, to replace the wood consumed, as is done in Sweden 
and Russia in localities deficient in mineral fuel, is not to be expected 
in a country like Ohio, where there are such vast stores of coal, and 
where the land must be of so much greater value for agricultural pur- 
poses. KHconomy and intelligent management will do much to prolong 
the life of a charcoal iron industry, but the increasing value of the fur- 
nace tracts, which are sometimes 10,000 to 12,000 acres in extent, must 
reduce the profits of the manufacture. These vast tracts of furnace 
property, embracing the larger part of the region, held as they are by 
