The Iron Age 1891-04-02: Vol 47

‘THE THuRSDAY, APRIL 2, 1891. The Cramp Purchase. The William Cramp & Sons’ Ship and | time are: Engine Building Company have purchased | James__iB. under that title as a stock company. officers of this company at the present John T. Morris, president; Thompson, treasurer, and the great Port Richmond Iron Works of | William P. Thomas, secretary. the I. P. Morris Company. pegotiations have ended and the considera- tion, which is said to be a large one, agreed upon. By this deal the Cramps secure one of the largest iron works in the country, on the river front, adjacent to their own great shipyards. Many ehanges have taken place by way of development of the works, which make their history extremely interesting. The pioneers were Levi, Isaac P. and Joseph P. Morris, who commenced business under the firm name of Levi Morris & Co., at Market street and The formal | transfer has not yet been made, but the| a - Engineer Sterne of London, England, projector of the new underground tunnels in the English metropolis, and Charles M. Jacobs, engineer of the Metropolitan un- derground system in New York, addressed a meeting of citizens in Boston in advocacy of the introduction in that city of the Greathead system of excavating tunnels for transit purposes. The estimate of the cost of tunneling Boston is $2,000,000 a mile. Engineer Jacobs stated that in coal mining in America there is taken out of The | Air Compressor for U. S. IRON AGE Monitor Terror. In modern marine engineering compressed air plays a most important part. Through- out the ship it is employed to furnish power, is used as a cushion, and as a refrigerating medium. The engraving presented on this page represents one of two compressors put in the U. 8. monitor Terror by the Norwalk Iron Works of South Norwalk, Conn. On this vessel compressed air will be used to load the guns, turn the turrets, take up the recoil of the guns and return them again into battery, steer, refrigerate a cold storage room, and gen- erally take the place of steam in the AIR COMPRESSOR, BUILT BY THE NORWALK IRON WORKS FOR U.S. MONITOR TERROR. Schuylkill Seventh, where Morris, Wheeler & Co.’s place now is, in 1828. In 1834 Lewis Taws, who became well known as a practical iron man, became a partner, and upon the retirement of Levi Morris, in 1841, the firm name was changed to I. P. Morris & Co. In 1847, the Market street place not being adequate to the business, the present site at Port Richmond was secured. In 1847 John J. Thompson be- came a member of the firm, and in 1862, upon the admission to partnership of John H. Towne, of Towne Scientific School fame, the firm name was changed to I. P. Morris, Towne & Co. On the retirement of Mr. Towne, ia 1868, the old name, I. P. Morris & Co., was resumed. Although several changes, occasioned by the death of partners or the admission of others to membership, name of I. P. Morris & Co. was continued until 1876. In that year the I. P. Morris Company were incorporated, and since then the business has been carried on the ground every 20 days an amount of material equal to that required to be ex- cavated to construct the largest tunnel system yet proposed, and that with a suf- ficient number of shafts the work in New York could be executed in 12 months. The New York State Board of Arbitra- tion submitted to the Legislature a report on the lockout of cutters by the Clothiers’ Exchange of Rochester, in which they say: ‘‘lt is suggested that, in so far as the | laws of the State fail to protect employers and employees alike in their prerogative of equal right to buy or sell the use of skill and labor, they are deficient and at fault, as not ‘conducive to harmonizing the relations of and disputes between em- | ployers and the wage-earning masses,’ or occurred after this, the| to the ‘improvement of the present system of production,’ and should be amended to those most desirable ends set forth by the Legislature itself in the act quoted.” power distribution. The two machines are of 250 horsepower each. The in- take air cylinders are 28 inches diameter; the compressing cylinders 17} inches. There is provision in the compressor to carry air pressure as high as 2000 pounds should that pressure be needed for dynamite guns or for charging tor- pedoes. One of the noteworthy features of the machine is the extremely small space taken for such large and pow- erful compressors. They go ‘‘tween decks,” where the head room is only. 5 feet. Their length was restricted to 14 feet 4 inches, and the width to 8 feet 8 inches. There are many novelties in the details of the design, which we ex- pect to illustrate in an early issue. The general plan employed is the compound system so long successfully used by the makers. The Norwalk Iron Works also built the compressors on the U. S. dyna- mite cruiser Vesuvius, which machines produce air of 2500 pounds pressure. > " ee ee CALE CAE ER = + een = oe dnt te a aie nie Sei i a TESCO LS a ae “Ser Tw a Foe y SSC ee . . a ee ee +e @ ft “FE . i emia 4 oe SOLAS BTS oe ; . 624 THE IRON AGE, April 2, 1891 ttt "OUR COPPER RESOURCES.” BY JAMES DOUGLAS, NEW YORK CITY. The development of the copper resources of this country has kept close pace with the unfolding of its geographica! area to commerce. In colonial days,‘ when our English ancestors occupied only the Atlan tic seaboard, insignificant quantities of copper were mined in Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and the ore was shipped for treatment to England. The first steam pumping equipment erected in this country was probably that used by Josiah Hornblower, in the year 1753, at the copper mines at Belleville, N. J., almost within sight of this city. That copper in the native state existed on Lake Superior was mentioned in the Relations des Jesuites as early as 1659 or 1660. The Rev. Claude Allouez described a stray mass in 1666. But it was not until 1771, a little more than a century later, when this region had passed from the dominion of France to that of Great Brit- ain, that Alexander Henry organized a company in England, with the Duke of Gloucester, Charles Townshend and other notables as incorporators, to mine copper on the Ontonagon River, the region whence came the stray blocks which had grown so famous by repeated mention in the Relations and by the reports of various travelers. Failing, in 1771, to find the copper in place, Henry renewed operations in the following year on Michipicoten Island, on the north shore, but only to score another failure. What little copper ore he raised was shipped to England, where ship and cargo were seized and sold for the company’s debts. Mr. Townshend’s losses in his Lake Superior venture may have embittered his feelings toward America, and perchance have been one of the indirect causes of the unreasonable financial policy towards the Colonies which precipitated the revolutionary war, and for which he, as president of the Board of Trade and subsequently as Chan- cellor of the Exchequer, was responsible, Then stagnation followed for three- quarters of a century. Even if no other cause had interfered, the unsettled owner- ship of the lake region must have retarded mining until the date at which it actually commenced, in 1844. For it was not until 1796 that Michigan was ceded by Great Britain to the United States; not till 1837 that Michigan was admitted to Statehood, and not until 1842 that the Indian titles to the lands were extinguished. Meanwhile steamers had replaced canoes on the lake, and in 1841 Dr. Houghton had given the world the first authentic and scientific account of the geological structure of the Keweenaw series of rocks and of the mode of occurrence of their native copper. In 1844 the Cliff Mine was opened, and in 1845 lake copper appears as an item in the world’s production. . That in those days our copper enterprises were in an infantile condition is shown by the fact that although in 1850 the lake pro duced only 570 tons, yet that small quantity was over 88 per cent. of the total production of this country. Leplay, Sec- retary of the Commission of Mining Statis- tics in France, estimates the world’s pro- duction at that date at 52,400 tons, and assigns to this country a consumption of 6100 tons, which was supplied by about 5500 tons of imported and 600 tons of domestic copper.+ After 1850, and until the yield of the Calumet and Hecla Mine began to be felt, in 1867, the relative pro- duction of the lake region fell off, owing *Read at the New York meeting of the American Institute of Mining Engineers. + Foster and Whitney Report, Part I, Copper Lands, p. 157. : es to the appearance successively of Vermont, the Southern States and California in the list of producers. Vermont copper came almost entirely from the Ely Mine, in the Vershire district. This mine was dis- covered in 1820, but began to be worked only in 1850, and thenceforward yielded from year to year an increasing quantity, till 1880, when its output amounted to 3,186,175 pounds. It was closed in 1882, but is now being re-opened. By far the largest producer in the Southern States during this period was the Ducktown group of mines, in Tennessee. Discovered about 1846, systematic work was begun in 1850, and before 1854, when smelting works were erected at the mines, over 14,000 tons of very rich sulphurets had al- ready been shipped. The experience gained there was used in discovering and working similar ore masses in North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia and Alabama, most of which yielded at this period no more than trifling quantities, but sufficient in the aggregate to swell the total, which nevertheless remained insignificant. Cali- fornia, during this period, shipped more copper than she has shipped _ since. Her export of ore in 1864 reached 14,315 tons, chiefly from the Union and Campo Seco mines of Calaveras County, which were opened on lenticular masses of sul- phureted ore imbedded in talcose slates. The Union Mine was closed in 1866, but was reopened three years ago. Thus it came about that the percentage eoming from the lake region declined from 96 per cent. in 1849 to 68.08 per cent. in 1866. But in 1867 Calumet and Hecla appeared with a shipment of 603 tons, followed in 1868 by 2276 tons, and year after year by an ever-increasing contribution, thus keep- ing up the lake percentage to between 80 and 90 per cent. of the total. This con- tinued until 1881, when a sudden fall of the relative Lake Superior production from 82 per cent. to 76.01 per cent. marked the advent of her Western rivals. Up to that date the line of the Union and Central Pacific railroads had offered the only through and direct route across the continent, and it happened that along that route no large copper deposits ex- existed. But simultaneously, in 1881, the Union Pacific road reached the neighbor- hood of Butte, Mon., by its Utah and Northern branch, and the Southern Pacific road completed the laying of its track through Arizona and New Mexico. Pre- vious to this the Longfellow Mine at Clif- ton, Ariz., had been worked, and its cop- per bullion carted 700 miles to the nearest railroad terminus in Kansas. The richer argentiferous copper ores of Butte, Mon., had also been hauled a distance of more than 400 miles to Corinne, on the Central Pacific Railroad. But mining operations were necessarily restricted in each district to exceptionally rich ores until the arrival of the railroad introduced mineral fuel. Arizona and Montana immediately re- sponded to the stimulus of cheap trans- portation, and mining and smelting on an extensive scale commenced in the extreme south and the extreme vorth of our wide Western domain, The next event which marked a stride in our progress toward pre-eminence in the copper world occurred in 1883. It was the discovery of large bodies of copper ore in the Anaconda Mine, the central and culminating point of the immense Butte lode. With a bound this great mine sprang into second place in the rank of production, and within five years overtook and passed its great com- petitor, the Calumet and Hecla. Since then the growth of production in both the lake region and the West has shown no abatement, but the relative increase has — in favor of Butte and against the ake. In 1881, therefore, these three sources of supply— namely, the native copper de- posits of the lake region, the oxidized ores of Southern Arizona and the sulphureted ores of Montana—constituted our chief re- source, jand they remain so to-day. In 1889 our total production was divided as follows: Per cent. PD CEic oc ce sincusscccwaes cietay 85.81 A Ade k ao dae seebeld beh seth doce ee 43.07 ES TRE ee OO ELEC ETT 13.34 All other mative OF OB. ..060 secccccccccce 5.69 Imported ores.. ....... aE Saks ea a PE Gat ccouve bed chr bken teases el 100.00 Lake Superior. In reviewing Lake Superior mining we find that three groups of mining companies have been successively formed, and that each group began operations on a separate one of the three distinct forms of deposit in which copper occurs in the rocks of the Keweenaw series. The first group of companies worked veins in search of mass copper; the second group worked the ash beds of Keweenaw County and their equivalent amygdaloid beds in the Port- age district, and the third group of com- panies worked the conglomerate beds. MASS The only mine of the first group now producing any considerable quantity of copper is the Central. The Cliff, which was the first mine systematically worked on the lake, having begun to produce cop- per in 1844, has yielded very little within the past decade. The same is true of the still more famous Minnesota, opened in 1848 in Ontonagon County on an inter- bedded vein; of the Phenix, opened in 1844; the Northwestern and Copper Falls in 1845; the Northwest in 1847; the Ridge in 1850; the National and Ever- green Bluff in 1853; the Mass in 1856, and of a host of small mines which never added much to the copper supply, but did add largely to the assessment roll. All these companies commenced operations in search of mass copper either on the trans- verse veins of Keweenaw County toward the point of the promontory, or on the in- terbedded veins of the Ontonagon country toward the base of the ee: The Copper Falls Company, failing in their quest, turned their attention to one of the amygdaloidal beds through which the vein cut, and which at the point of intersection seemed to enrich it. Thus, though the —— Falls Company remain to-day small producers, the Central is the only one of the original group of mass mining com- _ which still actively works a vein. e other mass mines yield but a trifle, and this is recovered by tributers. The ex- perience of other mass mines has been confirmed by the Central—namely, that the masses grow fewer as depth is attained, and that they are distributed in the veins in no regular or assignable order. The Central may not have produced as many large masses as the Cliff and the Minne- sota, but it yielded at least one even larger than the famous 500-ton mass of the latter mine. It consisted of a nucleus from which 600 tons of copper were cut, and a number of subordinate masses that were connected with the central mass by distinct filaments. The total amount of copper yielded by this series of related masses was about 1200 tons. Even in its most prosperous days‘ the product of the Central was about evenly divided be- tween mass and stamp copper. The vein varies in width from a mere seam to 25 feet, and the productive shute of ore be- low the 900-foot level does not average more than 300 feet in length. The possi- bilities for a large production do not, therefore, exist if operations are confined to this vein alone; but exploration for other veins is being vigorously pushed. The mine has reached the thirty-first level—a _ vertical depth of 2900 feet. Above the thirtieth level (2800 feet deep), the vein was shattered in passing through MINES. April 2, 1891 THE IRON AGE. — a bed of amygdaloid, and on that level was completely obliterated by an under- lying bed of conglomerate. Fears were entertained that the bottom of the mine had been reached, but recently the vein has been cut in sinking the shaft below the 2800-foo: level. It was thrown 240 feet to the west. Where rediscovered it is of average size of productiveness, The mine has yielded over 20,000,000 pounds of copper, and has proved so profitable from the start that even the first year’s ex- penditure was repaid by the first year’s returns. Though the vein has generally been narrow and the yield on the average ovly 1.9 per cent., the management has been so excellent and the cost of extrac- tion so low that dividends amounting to $2,000,000 have been paid on a capital of $100,000. AMYGDALOID MINES. The second group of companies was formed to work the ash beds of amygda- loidal diabase, which, though traceable throughout the whole length of the Keweenaw series of rocks, appear to be richer in copper on the shores of Portage Lake than elsewhere. As already re- marked, the Copper Falls (a mass com- pany) diverted their attention early in 1851 to the working of an ash bed. Although the extravagant hopes which were based upon excessive estimates of the yield of the ash bed were not realized, this com- pany’s endeavor stimulated speculation and honest work on the amygdaloid beds of Keeweenaw County and of Portage Lake district. Many companies were speedily organized for the purpose of de- veloping these properties. Contrary to the fate of the mass companies, most of them have maintained a more or less vig- erous existence to this day. Of the com- nies which appear in the list of pro- ucers within the past decade, the following belong to the second group and date back their beginning to the second riod of lake mining between the years 1850 and 1865: Isle Royal Company, who commenced work in 1852. Grand Portage Company, who com- menced work in 1853. Sheldon and Columbian Company, who commenced work in 1853. Pewabic Company, who commenced work in 1853. Huron Company, work in 1855. Quincy Company, who, though or- ganized in 1848, commenced active work only in 1856. Franklin Company, work in 1857. Albany and Boston Company, commenced work in 1860. South Pewabic Company (now the Atlantic), who commenced work in 1865. The Kearsarge and Wolverine are the only mines recently opened on an amyg- daloid bed in the Portage district. The former made its first return of 829,125 pounds of copper from a rock yielding 1.92 per cent. in 1888. Of this group of mines by far the most remunerative has been the Quincy, but the one which exhibits the most extra- ordinary minimum cost of production is the Atlantic. These mines are situated on opposite sides of Portage Lake. The Quincy crowns the summit of a hill which rises boldly from the lake at the point where the town of Hancock seems with difficulty to be climbing up its steep slope. The Atlantic is on the southern shore of the lake, to the southwest of the Quincy and on a more westerly bed. Both mines are in a rock which is similar in appearance and structure. The Quincy amygdaloid differs from the Atlantic, however, in that it carries 40 per cent. of its copper in masses and what is known who commenced who commenced who as ‘barrel work ”’—that is, metal in blocks so coarse that the earthy matter cau be separated under the hammer with- out dressing. It can, therefore be hand sorted. Nearly all the: Atlantic rock passes without selection through the stamp mill, and the product is almost ex- clusively ‘‘stamp work.” The Quincy bed, as might be anticipated from the mode of occurrence of its copper contents, is more variable in size and yield than the Atlantic, which, though much poorer, is remarkably uniform in its percentage. Quincy rock, as delivered to the mill, yields on an average about 2 per cent. of metallic copper ; the Atlantic only 0.75 per cent., which this year fell to 0.60 per cent. Both mines are worked to a great depth ; the Quincy’s lowest level is 3900 feet on the incline, and the Atlantic’s 1600 feet. In both mines the rock is easily broken, but the character, uniformity and width of the Atlantic bed allow it to be extracted more cheaply than the Quincy. The Quincy has to be sorted at the sur- face, whereas the Atlantic ore goes with- out handling to the mill. Both the mining and concentrating of the Atlantic ore can, therefore, be carried on at lower cost, and this partially offsets its greater leanness. Yet nothing but most excellent manage- ment has brought down the total cost of mining, raising and concentrating the ore, of delivering the concentrate to the furnace and smelting it, and of transport- ing to market and selling the refined copper, to $1.43 per ton of rock treated. That was the figure in 1888. In 1889 it was $1.53. The Quincy has just com- pleted a new and well equipped three- stamp mill with a capacity of 180,000 tons a year, which will enable it to in- crease its output of copper beyond the 3200 tons limit of 1889. The Atlantic will probably remain steady at about 1800 tons of copper produced from 280,000 tons of ore. I have selected for compari- son these two typical amygdaloid mines without disparagement to others, such as the Osceola, which are paying dividends out of rock yielding little more than 1 per cent. of copper. (70 be continued.) A The American Wire Nail Company. The pioneers in the manufacture of wire nails in America were the American Wire Nail Company, incorporated at Covington, Ky., in 1873. Their. first plant was a small one, and for many years its growth, while gradual, was but slow. The real development of the wire-nail business has practically occurred since 1886, and im this later development the American Wire Nail Company have played an important part. About two years since they removed to Anderson, Ind., in order to secure bet- ter facilities for manufacturing, chief among which is asupply of cheap fuel. On their removal to Anderson the plant was pony enlarged, and now comprises a rod-rolling mill, a wire-drawing works and a wire-nail factory. The location at Anderson is exception- ally advantageous. The company have their own gas wells and operate the entire plant with natural gas, which reduces their fuel account to aminmmum. Thus far they have not observed any diminution in the supply of gas from their wells, but they arranged the plant when it was built with a view to use coal for fuel should that ever become necessary. They are so near the Indiana coal fields that they can secure coal at less than $1 per ton deliv- ered at their works. At the same time they are within easy reach of both the Ohio and Indiana oil fields should they desire to use oil for fuel. Transportation facilities are most excellent for reaching both the East and the West. The works 625 are located directly on the Cleveland, Cin- cinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway, known as the Big Four, also on the Mid- land and on a belt line which connects with all the other railroads running into Anderzon, which is now quite an impor- tant railroad center. The entire works df the company are now in active operation. The rod mill, which is of the Garrett type, is doing re- markably good work, turning out an average of 175,000 pounds per shift, while it has made a record of 203,000 pounds. The roughing and finishing trains are separated in this mill, but are run by the same engine, which is geared directly to the roughing train and belted to the fin- ishing train some distance in its rear. Two heating furnaces, each making four heats, are in constant use. Four-inch billets are worked. The finishing train at present runs two rods at once and sometimes three, but additional boilers are now being put in to supply the necessary steam to run three rods regularly, which will materially increase the output over the figures given above. The reels used are of an improved pattern over those heretofore employed. They are four in number and run horizon- tally, located at the extreme end of the finishing rolls. An operator controls them from a platform above. As soon as a reel is filled the operator pulls a lever, which allows the coil to drop off the reel, when it is seized by a work- man, who runs it by an overhead railway to the side of the mill near the wire works. The wire mill is an extensive building, 280 by 80 feet, containing 50 blocks and affording ample room for all operations. The cleaning and annealing department it in one end of this building, where the rods are received from the rod mill. At the other end of the building the wire- nail factory is located. It contains 88 machines, which make all sizes and kinds of wire nails. This description shows the convenience of the plan on which the works have been arranged. Everything moves forward continuously from the raw material to the finished product. The output of the rod mill is at present in ex- cess of the finishing departments. About half the product of rods is sold to other wire mills. The company are officered as follows: President, L. H. Gedge; vice- president, F. C. Gedge; secretary, C. P. Garvey ; assistant secretary, C. H. Garvey; treasurer, E. J. Buffington; assistant treas- urer, W. B. Thomas. eu The Lehigh Zinc and Iron Company of Bethlehem, Pa., will shortly add to their capacity in manufacturing zinc oxide and spelter, by enlarging their works and by building another plant. The company have purchased a large tract of land lying along the Lehigh Valley Railroad south of the Northampton Furnace, near Freemans- burg, Pa., and are now at work preparing to erect large works for the manufacture of spelter. The new plant will give em- ployment to a large number of men. The work of erecting the plant will be rapidly pushed forward, and it is probable that it will be in operation in a few months. The rifling of the 12-inch mortar has begun at the Watervliet Arsenal, West Troy, N. Y. The utmost precision is required in adjusting the apparatus which does the work. Work bas also been begun on 25 field guns, known as 32-10 guns. Several of the smaller lathes are already in tise on the preparation of projectiles, and others soon to be put in place will also be started on the same class of work. The arsenal is very busy putting in new ma- chinery. No progress has yet been made in the negotiation of a reciprocity arrangement with the Argentine Republic - AN ee - ee ee ein «iat ent i | : ' j i als lis te cele Sy El: le te ara - 2 626 THE IRON AGE, April 2, 1891 oe, |dome. The second landing will cover an The P roctor Tower. area of 6400 feet, and booths, restaurants ih ‘and the like will be located here for the E : : 4s refreshment of those who desire to view E It is stated quite positively that the pe swegee : -s Proctor Tower will be built at Chicago, the city from an ng of om oo hae and will be a feature as conspicuous in | area of > first _ and third, t am ‘- ie connection with the World’s Fair there as | area of the second and third, and the . > a wer oh - eon three together will accommodate 50,000 Ae the Eiffel Tower was at the Paris Exposi- et, Z ti aa aieniaene taeine & iF tion. The designers of the Proctor Tower re | ee eee ie f onde aoe a 8 Gi are Holabird & Roche, prominent Chicago | The ican inet “ this aiaiiie Va architects, and the entire engineering work 2 : es ie will be in charge of Corydon T. Purdy structure will be of railroad iron and con- F 228 La Salle street. Contracts for the iron crete, the superstructure will - entirely é and steel required are expected to be let ee ae a. en r at an early day. Ten elevators will be re- gaokkcfe Deane. g sll fr quired F . ae hundred tons ~ = a i “On i oie , enter into the composition, and the plans ’ Pin gem cg gp mo ger have been submitted to. some of the most ] structure, which we reproduce. Our con- eminent engineers of the world, and have ? received their cordial endorsement. The temporary refers as follows to the struct ure : The Eiffel Tower was rightly consid- designer, David A. Proctor, will manage the enterprise, which, when completed, will stand as a monument unequaled in the world, and will no doubt be as suc- ( cessful a feature of the Columbian Exposi- tion as the Eiffel Tower was of the Paris Exposition. re There is to be a Central Asiatic Exhi- bition at Moscow this year. It is expected to be of much local importance, sufficient gi ered a marvel of engineering skill, but the o projected Proctor Tower, to be erected just si outside of Jackson Park, at the head of the Midway Plaisance, excels it 150 feet in hight, and is superior in architectural beauty, as well as in its special features. The bottom of the tower is composed of six substantial bases each 50 feet square, inclosing a surface of some 5 acres in ex- . } Ry J 3 l exrt TR : ys ~~ ft 3 7 TICKET TICKET S : / OFFICE OFFICE Xx aE : 5 A b: eS Ag ns P oF a kK) nN ce ee BS KIS bis Si re AS hd 7 y RSD M PHD 5 SIR x TICKET VAS": aX 5 Pa 2b OFFICE 1 ro apieeae es i 4 Ground Floor, Showing Elevator En- res closures, Floor Plan, 920 Feet Elevation. tent. These bases rest upon a foundation of stone masonry, sunk 17 feet below the surface of the ground and resting upon Wr mM rr ee, NARA A central space, some 400 feet square, \ will be aeauitiy floored and walled with UK vais AN as us marble, and within it will be located the DKDKIK VDA huge engines operating the elevators and NF SK Y NIK 5% dynamos, the ground space at the sides IN AKI /N\ NZS being taken up with booths, refectories | \4 Ra ROX SX) and the like. The elevators, which will | IRSA TSI move a central shaft, will ascend from the y to warrant the extension of invitations to this country for machinery exhibits, es- pecially those of the agricultural class, The Boston Journal of Commerce suggests that our cotton gin makers look into this matter and see if there is not something in the affair that can be turned to profit. The American cotton gin is well thought of in the cotton-growing regions of the Russian empire. For the year ending June 30, 1890, we exported to Russia $104,000 worth of agricultural imple- ments, nearly one- tenth of which went direct to Asiatic Rus- sia. How much more went by way of En. gland is not known. eee ‘POE ee we | D.. RS We x he \ 4 Ah ‘i a ad . a of 1000 feet in two SOOT + . ese AY WY WW Eas gr elevators, ten in num- ber, will be constructed and guarded in such a manner that accident will be impossible. Four of the cars will ascend to the second , ~ A Ye s ++ aea i ET ett aN Z, »¥ PN Le TTA 4) Tan a Suet ww RS ath RAN Cc. W Arny & Son o ; ; SEE We We) ee are , me —s and two will GPX aaa Sen EA Philadelphia, have S make the journey to hs TRY N Pipa ot We published a pamphlet 2 the dome, 150 feet MNS ANP OSL S Ser NN treating of the factors . from the top. At this ech a | | TT We Na ae and conditions re- ; ce a gpd my Will 1) Reker quired for the perfect t See ot tauilionien Fircronde) bre | i Hh c- iret erg z power ; ve oath } VY puke baat , Vv ipg. AS mapnu- 1 iti ‘ 7d a Sh Is A A NN bY N\ ; and, it is not unlikely, item for + \ Were »\ facturers of belting of an exhibit of the sig- Pg PK \ ’ d 1 . ‘a Ye hast Ba A WAL a a AMuilicdN many years’s standing nal service of the [hr ae DT a yp am \\NY,! Taal Vr en they have been able to a States. The Some Kiron me HOES | eae a en pty Sone collect a fund of infor- — Me TL . Nada - aa a TP ° ‘y \ oe ; j ; : wen af 220 fous and (AGERE aS YMG shouldbe of will be protected, as er a abe. value to all operators will the other two, by a of machinery. yy THE PROCTOR TOWER FOR THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION. ————— April 2, 1891 THE IRON AGE. 627 ae INK iN, BANS WN <i 3 7 He 5 | mR Ch A ! Fok Mui aan’ | The ar Yh ISTH i ood BEER EOE ids : _) ice pet NINN \/ mi\ . . : ecto Lev ofion f ! A a 4 ux oy PAA a a A A BSA: | ries a tay rt WW , —F ‘ai re I Re SN NS x C A A | | ' WS Seve UA ny \ i , = aN bs ty _ evallon 7 << N ; on line C-D stile 2 m4 Wit Ai. cz A (l\p I 4 LN LTS —S | | | ae Le | Ya ‘ w Ce a rT a | : tt Ht: LE a) Loe qk 1 ae : a —— a + Diahedidenmnenhel Sectional View of Base to a Hight of 400 Feet. : THE PROCTOR TOWER FOR THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION. ' ; ’ : ce ; we VRS an (es = © 2 Se ee ere” aves ~ ees =etty AMIE: 628 le Low Through Import Rates. The decision has just been published whfch was made by the Interstate Com- merce Commission in the important case brought by the New York Board of Trade and Transportation, the Commercial Ex- change of Philadelphia and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce against all the trunk line railroads of the country, to restrain them from transporting im- ported merchandise from the ports of entry to interior places of destination at lower than the pedals tariff rates. An example of the facts found in the case shows that, the tariff rate on linens from Philadelphia to Chicago being 69 cents, a through rate was made from Dufermline, Scotland, to Chicago of 80 cents, of which 40.91 cents was the British rail and ccean rate to Philadelphia and 39.09 cents was the in- land rate from Philadelphia to Chicago, being nearly 30 cents less than the schedule tariff rate; and again, on anvils, the rate being 33 cents from Philadelphia to Chi- cago, a through rate was made from Liver- pool to Chicago of 26.79 cents, of which 8.42 cents was the ocean portion and 18,37 cents was the inland portion, being nearly 15%cents lessthan the tariff rate. On tin KITCHEN THE PROCTOR TOWER FOR THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION. plate, the rate_from Philadelphia to Chi- | cago being 28 cents, through rates were made from Liverpool to Chicago of 24 | cents, 8 cents of which was the ocean miei ‘ea THE IRON AGE. April 2, 1891 f > / \ \ ecmennemanel a \ j Y Y “og . f —s f ELEVATOR | ELEVATOR I ‘ t ELEVATOR ELEVATOR X > 4 = « Q Z S .;™ “ ‘ \ % ® ~~ \4 . \ ~ Q ° ve / .— \ 4 ( \ \ ‘, - = . wU ———— ELEVATOR / f THROUGH CAR eLvevaror§ “tTICKETS THROUGH CAR Floor Plan at 200 Feet Elevation. and 16 the inland rate, being 12 cents less | Commissior to put a stop to the discrimin- than the tariff. This being unfavorable | ating rates. o American competitive traffic, the appeal} Most of the companies cited before the was made to the Interstate Commerce! commission answered to the charges that April 2, 1891 THE IRON AGE. 629 they had conformed to the order of the commission of March 23, 1889, providing that ‘‘ imported traffic transported to any place in the United States from a port of entry or reception, whether in this country or in an , adjacent foreign country, is required to be taken on the inland tariff governing other freights.” But the following roads admitted that since the date of said order they had ac- cepted as their share of the through rate on imported traffic a less sum than they had contemporaneously charged for like traffic originating in the United States: The Texas Pacific; St. Louis, Iron Moun tain and Scuthern: Louisville, New Orleans and Texas; Illinois Central; Wabash; Southern Pacific, Union Pacific; North- ern Pacific; Baltimore and Ohio; Le high Valley and Canadian Pacific railroad companies, and they presented various arguments in justification of their course, the substance of which was that the through rates from the foreign places of shipment were made by the ocean steam- = companies, and that to secure their rightful proportion of the trattic it became necessary for them to accept as their por- tion the low inland rates. The commission, in its decision, finds all of this contrary to law, and orders all the railroad companies named to ‘‘ forth- with cease and desist from carrying any article of imported traffic shipped from any foreign port through any port of entry in the United States or through any port of entry adjacent to the United States, upon through bills of lading destined to any place within the United States, at any other than upon the inland tariff covering other freight from such port of entry to such place of destination or at any other than the same same rates established in such inland tariff for the carriage of other like kind of traffic, in‘the elements of bulk, weight, value and expense of car- riage —this order to take effect on and after May 5, 1891. The commission fur- ther order that ‘‘ all the other defendants than those last above named must in the future comply with the rules and princi- ples settled in this report and opinion in relation to the carriage of import traffic by carrying the same upon their inland tariff covering other like kinds of traffic in the elements of bulk, weight, value and expense of carriage.” But the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada got around the object of the order of March 23, 1889, in a manner found by the com- mission to be perfectly within the letter of the law, although it does not prevent the company from carrying goods at the ‘‘cut rate.” It enacted a ‘‘ commodity tariff,” which it published according to the regulations of the Interstate Com- merce Commission, in which it included the chief items of transportation from for- eign countries at rates much below the former schedule for the same class of goods. The company are enabled to do this because from their ports of entry— Montreal in the navigation season and Portland in the winter season—there is no exclusively local traffic of any conse- quence. In other words, all the goods of the character named which the road would be called upon to transport were foreign goods. Coming thus within the letter of the law, the commission was forced to hold the company justified and to dismiss the complaint. The peculiar position of this company under the cir- eumstances will givethem some advantage, though not a very important one, over the exclusively United States lines, but it is believed that legislation will be asked to remove even this advantage. aang Rettman The Cincinnati Corrugating Company, long and prominently known as manufact- urers of high grades of corrugated and other forms of iron and steel sheets for roofing purposes, last year added a galvan- izing plant complete. Their location being central gives them advantages for shipping They carrya large and varied stock of their Piqua brand of galvanized sheets. a The Baring Failure. Ata ‘‘ General Court” of the governor and company of the Bank of England, William Lidderdale, the governor, made the following reference to the Baring dif- ficulties : Before asking you to consider the ac- counts, I think that the special circum- stances which have marked the past half year as an exceptional one in financial his- tory call for some notice on my part. So much, however, has already been said and written upon the subject that I need not occupy you very long. You must all have learned from the press that in the second week of November it became known to the bank that the great house of Baring were in difficulties. For an announce- ment that the firm were embarrassed by their operations in South America the gov- ernors would, to some extent, have been prepared, but not for the actua facts. The situation was at once recognized to be very grave and to demand prompt and decided action on the part of the direc- tors. We had @ reserve ample for ordi- nary requirements, but not for the demand certain to come upon the bank the mo- ment Messrs. Barings’ difficulty became known. The old and well-proved remedy of raising the rate would not have met the urgency of the case, as the condition of financial affairs in several countries of Europe, as well as in the United States, made it certain that gold to the required extent could not be attracted here except slowly, and then only by rates so high as to involve much suffering to our own trading and mercantile community. It was therefore decided to adopt exceptional measures, even at a considerable sacrifice to the bank. In the course of a couple of days we secured, by a sale of exchequer bonds to the State Bank of Russia, the sum of £1,500,000 in gold, and obtained from Paris, as a loan, by the prompt and liberal action of the Bank of France, a further sum of £3,000,000 as an addition to our resources. Four days of that week were occupied in the preparation and ex- amination of a statement of Messrs Bar- ings’ position, and on November 14 I was enabled to assure the heads of her Majesty’s Government that there was good reason to believe, without committing my- self to definite figures, that the assets would yield a substantial surplus over the liabilities if sufficient time were allowed for liquidation. Without this belief in their full eventual solvency nothing could have been done to save the firm. When I tell you that the liabilities of Messrs. Baring Brothers were over £21,000,000 you will realize that the burden of carry- ing over their difficulties was not to be lightly undertaken even by the Bank of England, and that the risk of doing so was more than the bank was called upon to bear alone. It was necessary, therefore, to invoke the aid and support of the finan- cial community in forming a guarantee fund to justify the bank in providing the money required. Iam glad to acknowledge the prompti- tude of the response made. It was nearly 5 o'clock in the afternoon on Friday when the guarantee list was opened and headed with £1,000,000 by the Bank of England. In half an hour the amount had reached £3,250,000, by 11 next morning—Satur- day—it was £6,500,000, and at 12 I was able to announce that the liabilities of the firm would be duly met. This, however, did not prevent large further additions to the guarantee fund, which eventually reached £17,250,000, rendering it certain that, even if the liquidation proved dis- appointing, the loss to any individual guarantor could hardly be serious. You will, no doubt, wish to know how the liquidation has proceeded, and I will, therefore, give an outline of the account. On November 1 the liabilities stood at about £21,000,000, the assets apparently at about £24,800,000. Since then numer- ous entries have been made on both sides of the account, additional drafts having come forward and remittances been re- ceived, but on March 1 the liabilities to the public had been reduced to £3,522,- 000. The debt to the bank, however, had reached £6,650,000, making a total of £10,172,000 still due. The assets in bills and cash were on March 1 £849,000, and the debts due to the firm £3,364,000, mak- ing a total of £4,213,000. To cover the difference of nearly £6,000,000 there were securities in hand to a considerably larger extent. Of these the partners’ lands, houses and private property represent over £1,000,000, and the securities of which the value is readily ascertainable about £1,250,000; the balance consists of South American securities, and these are much more difficult toestimate. Wherever there are quotations we have taken the very lowest; in other cases we have put on low prices, and I can only say again, without committing myself to figures, that, although the market for South American securities has seriously declined since November 1, there is still, to all ap- pearances, a substantial surplus over the liabilities—a surplus, in my judgment, quite sufficient to protect the guarantors. — a Customs Decisions. The Treasury Department has made a ruling in regard to the marking, stamping, branding or labeling of foreign goods, un- der the terms of the present Tariff law, to the effect that articles which were ordi- narily stamped at the time of the passage of the act, must now be stamped with the name of the country of origin; if ordi- narily branded, the name of the country must be branded, or if labeled the name of the country, and if marked in any other way, the name of the country should be now marked in the same manner, but that goods which were ordinarily stamped at the time of the passage of said act cannot now be labeled except where the goods had been manufactured prior to the pas- sage of the act and the stamping and branding or otherwise marking is imprac- ticable from the nature of the goods. The decision arose on an application for the entry of Carving Knives labeled with the name of the country of origin. The Treasury Department at Washing- ton has affirmed the decision of the Col- lector of Customs at Philadelphia, assess- ing duty at, the rate of 45 per cent. ad valorem as unenumerated manufactures of metal on certain so-called Chopping Knives which the importer claimed to be dutiable at the rate of 35 per cent. ad valorem under the provision for Cutlery. This action is based on information that the articles in question are in design and use ;more closely allied to Cleavers than to Knives, and that their adaptation to use as Choppers in contra-distinction contri- butes the principal feature of their con- struction. Sn Southern people, with something like exultation, notice the extraordinary pre- ponderence of cotton exports this season compared with any other single article of merchandise. For February the total is about one third larger than for the cor-: responding month in 1890. The South, commercially speaking, is just now ‘‘at the front.” —_————_ ee ee a os ~ ee ee TR ee ee OT AOS ee oo a Stu vr we eae “ : x . : i math | 630 Seamless and Brazed Brass and Copper Tubes. THE IRON AGE. patents, about the year 1850. At that date the business in Europe was very small, and the product turned out was de- cidedly crude. The principal uses to which the tubes were then put were for flues in locomotive boilers and condensers, [ W ith Suppleme ntar Ys Sheet of Engravi ings. ] w hich work did not require extreme accu- The magnitude and importance of the seamless brass and copper tube business at the present time and the almost total lack 7 7“ CARPENTER ‘| & BOX SHOP | \ \ s |< lie I} a rd | ” | a {| w r 1 » \ a | ° oO | REEL ROD ROLLING | 9” TRAIN oconcona o = =|] MILL 16 TRAIN © % Aon >» \ % % < > Fig. 2.—Map of Works of Randolph & Clowes, of literature upon the subject justify us in first presenting a brief historical account of the industry and the present stand it takes, before describing the methods pur- sued at one of the most extensive works, History. The seamless brass and per tube business was first comune in the racy or uniformity in sizes and gauges. By the perseverance and zeal on the part of the ow ners, who managed the business themseives, the American Tube Works BRAZED TUBES BOILERS UUUOUL 3 STORIES Wid] Tu COPPER April 2, 1891 $300,000, and securing the master me- chanic or superintendent of the American Tube Works, they erected buildings and put in machinery for the prosecution of the business at Mott Haven, N. Y. They spent the whole $300,000, and for want of more money work was suspended, the plant not having as yet been completed. Another party ot capitalists took the mat- ter up at this stage, raised another $300, - 000, all of which was spent in the effort ed -——— ee ee ee ee TUDE CASTING’SH STING my FLAT METAL CA 3 ee SS Y, iy 4 core Room 3/ af CORE OVE a PRESS FOR POTS MACHINE SHOP {] SCALES | PICKLING MUFFLES ROOM HY ORAULIC all ft f] FOR DRAWING BOILERS ROOM a MACHINE TESTING SHIPPING ROOM on SCALE, 85 FEET TO ONE INCH. —— > —<$__— = — NAUG.R. R. | iad have gradually grown to considerable im- portance, and until about 1870 were really the only manufacturers in this country of seamless tubes. This practical monopoly of the business permitted them to obtain very high prices. As a natural result would-be competitors started up rival con- cerns, and about 1855 the North Ameri- United States by the American Tube | can Seamless Tube Works were organized Works of Boston, working under English | by New York parties with a capital of to get the business into practical opera- tion. Work was then abandoned and the- machinery sold fer old iron, but not, how- ever, until a third party of capitalists had tried to run the plant under the name of the Columbia Tube Works. The Bridge- water Iron Works, which had been very successful in the iron business and amassed a large surplus, and who considered the seamless tube business to be one yielding. April 2, 1891 THE IRON AGE. 631 enormous profits, erected a plant for mak- ing seamless brass and copper tubing some time in the °60s. They erected buildings, put in a full plant, and although they succeeded in making tubes and bringing the prices down to such a point that there was little or no profit in the business, they were not successful, as | in July, 1886, they went into bankruptcy. Other aspirants for honors and profits | loomed up about the year 1880. At that time Brown & Bros. of Water- bury, Conn., probably stood as high in the manufacture of sheet brass and cop- per, brazed tubes, &c., as any concern in the country. About 1878 they also turned their attention to the seamless tube busi- ness, being probably led into this from the fact that they had started to manu- facture copper range boilers drawn from sheet copper. The heavy hydraulic ma- chinery which this process necessitated | led them to believe that they could extend the business to turning out seamless brass and copper tubes with machinery founded | rectors. were the American Tube Works, of Boston, the Bridgwater Iron Works, Brown & Bros and the Benedict & Burnham Mfg. Company. Since 1886 there have been at least two other attempts to start a seamless tube business in this country, one in Philadelphia and one in Waterbury, both of which have been as yet unsuccessful. Upon the failure of Brown & Bros. the seamless and brazed tubing and boiler works were purchased by Randolph & Clowes, the former putting in mest of the capital but taking no active management in the business, which devolved upon the latter, George H. Clowes, who had been forsome 10 or 12 years connected with the old firm in various positions, and dur- ing the last four or five years of its existence acted as assistant treasurer and office manager, but whohad had nothing to do with the management or policy of the com- pany, his duties being simply to see that the details of the business were carried out in accordance