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AT THE 
 
 Front Door of Canada 
 
 THE GREAT WORKS OF THE 
 
 DOMINIOW IRON AMD STEEL COMPANY, 
 
 AT SYDNEY, C. B. 
 
 The Most Favourable Situation in the World 
 for an \roT\ ji^dustry. 
 
 A SERIES OF ARTICLES WRITTEN FOR 
 
 The Montreal Daily Star, 
 
 , BY . - 
 
 V/ATSON GRIFFIN. 
 
 MONTREAI, : 
 Dominion Printing Company, 1838 Notre Dame Street. 
 
 1899. 
 
SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION— The necessity of developing Canadinn iron and steel in- 
 dustries — The altitude of the Montreal Star — Iron and steel prices are the 
 best trade barometer and may be used as a guide in making all kinds of in- 
 vestments. 
 FIRST ARTICLE— "The Maritime Provinces of Canada the counterpart of the 
 British Isles as regards natural resources — Sydney, Cape Breton, where the 
 Dominion Iron and Steel Works are being built, is nearer to Great Britain, 
 France, Germany and other countries of Europe, South America, Africa, 
 and Asia than New Orleans, Mobile or any port on the Atlanric coast of the 
 United States — The establishment of the iron and steel works likely to create 
 an industrial revolution in these provinces. 
 SECOND ARTICLE— The strangest iron mine in the world on Great Bell 
 Island, Newfoundland— Littlj blocks of red hematite ore piled up one upon 
 another and side by side as children pile up woodtn blocks, so that no expen- 
 sive mining is required — A million dollars paid for the mine, but it is worth 
 many times as much— The Company also owns a mine in Cuba — Widespread 
 indications of iron in the Maritime Provinces. 
 THIRD ARTICLE — The cost of laying down iron ore at Sydney compared with 
 the cost at other iron making centres. Iron mines of Great Britain and con- 
 tinental Europe being rapidly exhausted. 
 FOURTH ARTICLE— Cluap fuel for the furnaces of the Dominion Iron and 
 Steel Company — Cape Breton coal makes excellent coke — Four hundred 
 modern coke ovens to be constructed at Sydney — They will save all the valu- 
 able volatile constituents of coal which go to waste at most of the coke ovens 
 of the United States — Interesting statement by Mr. Henry M. Whhney re- 
 garding the value of sulphate of ammonia as a fertilizer. 
 FIFTH ARTICLE — The Dominion Iron and Steel Company a combination of 
 
 strong men — The past achievements of the President and Directors. 
 SIXTH ARTICLE — Interesting description of the various processes of making 
 iron and steel— The difleience between cast iron, wrought iron and steel 
 — Basic open hearth steel superior to Bessemer steel for all structural purposes, 
 for shipbuilding and aimour plates. Works of the Dominion Iron and Steel 
 Company at Sydney. 
 SEVEN'] II ARTICLE— The cost of making iron and steel at Sydney, C. B.— 
 Highest and lowest prices of pig iron and steel at Pittsburg, Birmingham, Ala,, 
 Glasgow and Montreal for many years — The Dominion Iron and Steel Com- 
 pany likely to make very large profits —Even in periods of world wide depres- 
 sion with low prices prevailing iron and steel can be sold at a profit. 
 EIGHTH ARTICLE — Room for a big increase in Canadian production of iron 
 and steel — For every ton of pig iron made in Canada i6i tons are made in the 
 United States — Canada ought to makq,a million tons of pig iron annually, but 
 only made 73,039 tons last year — Favourable situation of Sydney, C. B., for 
 themanufactureof articles requiring iron and steel as raw materials for either 
 expoit or home consumption — Canada annually imports over sixteen million 
 dollars' worth of manufactures of iron and steel, while the United States only 
 imports about twelve million dollars' worth. 
 NINTH ARTICLE — The remarkable career of Mr. Arthur J. Moxham, manager 
 of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company — He has had a very wide experience 
 in the manufacture of iron and steel, but is still a young man. , 
 
 ^' Run ') 
 
A BIG THING FOR CANADA. 
 
 Frcjm the Montreal Daily Star, September 15, 1899. 
 
 rOR the last thirteen years the Star has been 
 advocating the development of Canadian 
 iron and steel industries. It has long 
 been known to readers of geological reports that British North 
 America is wonderfully rich in iron, and the Star has frequently 
 urged the Canadian Government to take steps to secure the 
 development of our iron resources, because iron is the raw material 
 of so many manufactures that all industries depend, directly or 
 indirectly, upon it, and no country can be industrially independent 
 without a home iron industry. A study of the industrial develop- 
 ment of other countries showed that no country had ever 
 established a great iron industry without the stimulus of protective 
 duties or bounties. The Conservative Government, in framing 
 the National Policy tariff of 1879, while affording protection to 
 many industries, failed to apply the principle to that industry 
 which is the basis of nearly all others. In the year 1886 the Star 
 published a series of editorials calling upon the Government to 
 rectify this defect in the National Policy, and, as it was expected 
 that the tariff would be revised during the Parliamentary 
 session of 1887, a member of the editorial staff was sent to Cape 
 Breton and other coal mining sections of Nova Scotia to write up 
 the question of the value of an iron industry from the standpoint 
 of the coal mines, the purpose being to show how much the coal 
 miners would be benefited by the establishment of an iron industry. 
 A series of articles was published extending over a period of some 
 
4 
 
 weeks, and marked copies of the Star containing these articles 
 were sent to every member of Parliament. Sir Charles Tupper 
 was then Minister of Finance. He was the first of our public 
 men to appreciate the necessity of developing an iron-making 
 industry, and in his budget speech he announced that it would be 
 the policy of the Govenmient, by protective duties and bounties, 
 to encourage the establishment of blast furnaces and steel mills. 
 The development of an iron industry is always a slow process 
 in its early stages. Mines must be opened, ores tested and trans- 
 portation provided. Then it requires a very large investment of 
 capital to carry on the industry, even upon a small scale. A 
 blast furnace is very costly, and it takes a long time to build one. 
 With all the millions at the command of the newly organized 
 Dominion Iron and Steel Company, it will be impossible to get a 
 single blast furnace in operation in a shorter period than sixteen, 
 and perhaps eighteen months from the time of giving out the 
 contract. 
 
 Although protective duties and bounties were granted in 1887 
 there was such bitter opposition to this policy that it was difficult 
 to induce capitalists to invest upon a large scale because they feared 
 that a change of Government might result in the abandonment of 
 protection before they could get their works in operation. How- 
 ever, it was not long before the good effects of the new policy 
 began to be seen. A blast furnace using coke as fuel was built 
 at Ferrona, in Pictou county, N. S., by the Nova Scotia Steel 
 Company, and a charcoal funiace at Radnor, Que., by the Canada 
 Iron Furnace Company, both of which produced excellent iron 
 that soon obtained a reputation even outside of Canada. But the 
 development of a great Canadian iron industry was delayed owing 
 to the fact that a world-wide depression existed in the iron 
 industry and prices were abnormally low for some years. 
 
 The Ontario Government, seeing the good effects of the Do- 
 minion Government's iron policy, supplemented the Dominion 
 duties and bounties by a provincial bounty. The first furnace to 
 go into blast in Ontario was the one at Hamilton which proved a 
 success although it had to bring both coke and ore from a distance. 
 Then the Rathbuns built a charcoal furnace at Deseronto and 
 another charcoal furnace is now being built by the Canada Iron 
 Furnace Company at Midland, on Georgian Bay, which is 
 considered a most favourable point for assembling the raw mate- 
 rials, as charcoal and limestone can be obtained near at hand, 
 while the ore can be brought in the largest lake vessels from the 
 north shore of Lake Superior, 
 
The future of the Canadian iron industry is very promising. 
 Prices of iron and steel are now very high throughout the world, 
 and the best authorities are of the opinion that they will not for 
 many years reach the abnormally low figures which prevailed for 
 a few years. The Liberal Government has wisely decided to 
 accept the Conservative policy of encouraging the iron industry. 
 At the last session of Parliament Mr. Fielding, Minister of 
 Finance, with the hearty approval of Sir Charles Tupper, an- 
 nounced that the period for which bounties would be granted 
 would be extended until the end of the year 1907. By that time 
 we believe that Canada will have a number of great iron and steel 
 making establishments of which the Canadian people will have 
 reason to be proud. The greatest of them is likely to be that of 
 the Dominion Iron and Steel Company at Sydney, C. B. The 
 Star man who visited Cape Breton in 1887 was particularly 
 impressed with the natural advantages afforded by the proximity 
 of coal, limestone and iron ore, and he then predicted that some- 
 where in the vicinity of the coal mines tributary to the harbours 
 of Sydney and Louisburg a great iron and steel industry would 
 eventually be established. This prediction is now about to be 
 realized, and the Star, believing that the investment of so many 
 millions of dollars in Cape Breton will create an industrial revo- 
 lution not only in that island, but throughout the Maritime Pro- 
 vinces, and that all Canada will be benefited by it, proposes to 
 publish a series of articles under the heading ' ' At the Front 
 Door of Canada" describing this great undertaking, which will 
 be far the biggest industrial enterprise in Canada. These articles, 
 the first of which will appear in to-morrow's issue, should be read 
 by all Canadians who are interested in the development of the 
 country. No business man can afford to be ignorant about the 
 iron industry, because all lines of business are affected by it. As 
 the Star has already pointed out, many business men who do not 
 use iron, watch the prices of iron and steel, considering that they 
 make the best trade barometer, and use them as a guide in 
 making all kinds of investments. 
 
The Wonderful Geographical Situation of 
 
 Sydney, C. B. 
 
 'Ftom the Montreal Daily Star, September i6, iSgg, 
 
 I. 
 
 INCE the building of the Canadian Pacific 
 Railway no enterprise has excited such gen- 
 eral interest in Canada as the organization 
 of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company, 
 
 which proposes to manufacture iron and steel at Sydney, Cape 
 Breton, in the Province of Nova Scotia. The immense amount 
 of money that is being expended in the construction of the works, 
 and the fact that the capital for the undertaking is being furnished 
 by a combination of the wealthiest men in Canada and the United 
 States, men who have never been known to fail in anything that 
 they have undertaken, has excited widespread curiosity. The 
 eyes of the Canadian people have heretofore been turned westward. 
 The development of Manitoba, the North- West territories and 
 British Columbia has been watched with keen interest by the 
 whole people and almost every man, woman and child in the 
 Dominion has felt a personal interest in the progress of that great 
 western country. There is no doubt that the people of the 
 eastern and central provinces will always continue to have a com- 
 mon national pride in the North- West, but the West will not 
 engage the exclusive attention of our people in the future as it 
 has in the past. 
 
 Those who wish to watch the development of Canada must 
 look to the East as well as to the West. Few Canadians as yet 
 realize the great natural resources of the Maritime Provinces and 
 the wonderful geographical advantages they possess for a world 
 wide commerce. These provinces have the same geographical 
 relation to the continent of North America that the British Isles 
 have to the continent of Europe. They jut out into the Atlantic 
 far to the east of North America just as the British Isles lie out 
 in the Atlantic to the west of Europe. The area is nearly as 
 great as that of England and Wales, and if Newfoundland be 
 included the area is a little greater than that of England, Wales 
 
and Scotland. The natural resources of the Maritime Provinces 
 are probably almost as great as those of the British Isles before 
 they were developed, and greater than those of the British Isles 
 at the present time, itor the minerals of the United Kingdom have 
 been to a considerable extent exhausted, while those of the 
 Maritime Provinces have scarcely been touched, and their fisheries 
 are acknowledged to be the richest in the world. The fact that 
 the resources of the Maritime Provinces have been neglected, 
 while other parts of the continent have been developed should 
 not be a reason for discouragement regarding the future of these 
 provinces. The British Isles were undeveloped and had but a 
 small population at a time when some of the countries of con- 
 tinental Europe were rich and populous centres of industry and 
 commerce. 
 
 The Maritime Provinces might also be compared with the 
 New England States. Including Newfoundland, the area of the 
 Maritime Provinces is 90,414 square miles, as compared with the 
 62,005 square miles of the New England States. Excluding 
 Newfoundland and Maine, we may compare Prince Edward 
 Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, which have an area of 
 50,214 square miles, with Massachusetts, Rhode Island, 
 Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont, having an area of 
 32,1 10 square miles and a population of over four millions. The 
 New England States have no coal, few valuable minerals and 
 only limited areas of fertile land. 
 
 Prince Edward Island, the smallest province of the Dominion, 
 lies at the south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and is separated frcin 
 the mainland by Northumberland Strait. It is 150 miles in 
 length, varies in width from four to thirty miles, and has an area 
 of 2,133 square miles, almost every foot of which is suitable fcr 
 cultivation. The soil is naturally very fertile and the island has 
 a unique advantage in the possession of inexhaustible supplies of 
 natural manure in the form of mussel mud, formed by the decay 
 of oyster, clam and mussel shells in all the bays and river mouths, 
 A good dressing of this mussel mud is said to have a marvellous 
 effect in restoring fertility to the poorest soils. The chief crop 
 of the island is potatoes, but all kinds of grains and vegetables 
 are produced in abundance and all the fruits of the North tem- 
 perate zone, excepting peaches and grapes can be successfully 
 grown. A large cheesemaking industry has been developed 
 within the last five years. The fisheries are valuable and the 
 islanders are devoting special attention to the cultivation of 
 oysters. The island is practically without mineral resources, 
 although coal is believed to exist at a great depth. The climate 
 is by no means severe, and the atmosphere is clear, fogs being 
 seldom experienced. In January and February the thermometer 
 sometimes registers as low as fifteen degrees below zero for a few 
 hours at a time, but such cold is exceptional, the average of all 
 temperatures during January and February for seven years being 
 nearly seventeen degrees above zero. The Province of Nova 
 Scotia is three hundred and eighty-six miles in length, by from 
 
8 
 
 fifty to one hundred miles in width, with ain area of 210,907 
 scjuare miles, and extends from the 43rd to the 47th parallel of 
 latitude. The coasts of the mainland are rugged and uninviting 
 in appearance, and Mr. Herbert Crosskill has compared the 
 province to a splendid painting in a coarse iron frame, but the 
 rough-looking frame, with its minerals, its many commodious 
 harbours and rich fisheries, is as valuable as the fertile interior. 
 
 Owing to its almost insular position and perhaps to the 
 influence of the Gulf stream, which flows not far from its southern 
 extremity, the climate of the greater part of the province is 
 much more moderate than that of the neighbouring Stateof Maine. 
 Extreme cold is seldom experienced in any part of the province, 
 but the northern counties are more exposed to the influence of 
 the Arctic current flowing through Belle Isle than those in the 
 south and along the Bay of Fundy. Thus, Anna|-olis township, 
 where the climate averages about six degrees warmer than that 
 of the State of Massachusetts, is seven or eight degrees warmer 
 on the average than the counties in Cape Breton and along 
 Northumberland Strait, five or six degrees warmer than Halifax 
 and Colchester counties, and three or four degrees warmer than 
 the famed country of Evangeline along the Basin of Minas. At 
 Yarmouth, the most southern town in Nova Scotia, the mininum 
 temperature in an average winter is 1.3 degrees above zero, while 
 the average of all temperatures in January and February for 
 seven years was 25.4 degrees. But the summer temperatures are 
 lower than those of the Annapolis Valley. In Sydney, Cape 
 Breton, near the north end of the province, the thermometer 
 sometimes touches thirteen below zero, the average of ^ all 
 temperatures for January and February for seven years being 
 18.9 degrees above zero, while at Halifax about half way between 
 Yarmouth and Sydney, the greatest degree of cold experienced 
 in an average winter is between six and seven degrees below zero, 
 the average of all temperatures at that point during January and 
 February for seven years being twenty-two degrees above zero. 
 The winters are short, but except in the south-western counties 
 the spring is long and backward owing to the chilling influence 
 of the ice that drifts through Belle Isle. But there is some 
 compensation for the backward spring in the beautiful autumn. 
 
 The garden of Nova Scotia is in the Annapolis and 
 Comwallis valleys, a district about eighty miles long and from 
 four to twelve miles wide, protected from the summer fogs of 
 Fundy and the chilling ocean winds by two ranges of hills known 
 as the North and South Mountains. The North Mountains skirt 
 the south shore of the Bay of Fundy from Briar Island to the 
 Basin of Minas, terminating in a bold bluff called Cape Blomidon. 
 On the other side of Minas channel, the range is continued under 
 the name of the Cobequid mountains, acting as a shield against 
 the cold winds coming from the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the 
 spring. The apples of the Annapolis Valley command a higher 
 price in the English markets than those grown in any other 
 quarter of the world. In this valley and its extensions there are 
 
already about forty thousand acres of apple trees, and it is 
 estimated that there are nearly four hundred thousand acres 
 capable of producing the very finest fruit. While the climate and 
 soil seem particularly adapted to the production of apples, they 
 are also favourable to grapes, melons and tomatoes, and peaches 
 have been successfully grown. King's county, the scene of 
 Longfellow's Evangeline, although not quite so warm as Anna- 
 polis township, is equally fertile, and the dyked land? 'ppear to 
 be as productive now after centuries of tillage, as wlien they were 
 cultivated by the simple Acadians. All the other counties 
 bordering on the Basin of Minas and those lying along Cumber- 
 land Strait and the Gulf are good agricultural districts. Except- 
 ing Yarmouth, none of the counties along the Atlantic coast are 
 generally well adapted for agriculture, although they contain 
 small tracts of excellent farming lands, and no doubt much of 
 the land, now considered unsuited for cultivation could be made 
 productive under a system of scientific farming and the use of 
 fertilizers. 
 
 The gold bearing rocks of Nova Scotia extend along the 
 Atlantic coast from Canso to Yarmouth, and are estimated to cover 
 about three thousand square miles. Very little capital has been 
 invested in their development, but nearly twenty thousand ounces 
 of gold are annually extracted. Silver, copper, tin, lead, man- 
 ganese, plumbago and g>'psum have also been found in the pro- 
 vince, but have not yet been extensively mined. But Nova 
 Scotir' has most reason to thank Nature for the stores of coal 
 and iron with which the province is so richly endowed. The 
 known productive coal fields occupy an area of 685 square miles, 
 the veins being of extraordinary thickness, and there are believed 
 to be considerable areas as yet unproved. All the different 
 varieties of iron ore have been found in the province, and some 
 of the deposits are very extensive. 
 
 Along Nova Scotia's five hundred miles of sea coast are the 
 breeding and feeding grounds of countless millions of fish. Pros- 
 perous fishing villages are found all along the rough-looking 
 coast, and the annual catch is greater than that of any other 
 Canadian province. The timber resources are great, and extensive 
 lumbering operations are carried on. 
 
 New Brunswick adjoins the State of Maine and is in many 
 respects its counterpart, but it has a much longer coast line, and 
 the surrounding waters tend to moderate its climate somewhat. 
 
 The most noteworthy feature of the province is its extensive 
 system of navigable rivers and lakes, giving almost every section 
 communication with the sea. The total area of the province is 
 seventeen million acres, and thirteen million acres are estimated 
 to be suitable for agriculture. Millions of acres in the most 
 fertile sections still remain unoccupied, and can be obtained by 
 settlers as free grants or purchased at very slight cost. All kinds 
 of grains and vegetables thrive in New Brunswick ; apples and 
 pears are successfully grown, while the smaller fruits, such as 
 cherries, raspberries and blackberries, are raised in great 
 
ro 
 
 quantities. But the province seems to be particularly adapted 
 for stock raising and dairying, on account of the luxuriant pas- 
 turage and unfailing supplies of water. 
 
 New Brunswick not only has extensive sea fisheries, but its 
 inland waters are full of salmon, trout and other fish which are 
 very attractive to sportsmen. There are millions of acres of trees 
 that have never been touched by the axe. These forests are so 
 near to navigable rivers connecting with the sea that the facilities 
 for exporting lumber and making pulp are unequalled. Iron ores 
 are found in abundance in various parts of the province while 
 antimony, copper, manganese, lead, silver, gold and tin have been 
 discovered, but very little capital has been invested in their 
 development and the value of the deposits is unknown. 
 
 The climate of all parts of the Maritime Provinces is remark- 
 ably salubrious, and it is claimed that the average of life is longer 
 than in any other quarter of the globe. According to the census 
 of 1 89 1 in a population of 880,737 for the three provinces there 
 were 16,961 over seventy-five years of age and 8,098 over eighty 
 years of age. 
 
 With such great natural resources and such a wholesome 
 climate, why is it that there are less than a million people in 
 these provinces ? The chief reason is lack of capital to develop 
 the resources, and lack of confidence on the part of the people. 
 There are few local manufacturing industries, and hundreds of 
 thousands have gone to the United States to seek employment. 
 The products of the farms are shut out of the industrial centres 
 of the United States by high duties, and the fact that they are 
 nearer to Europe than any other part of America is of little 
 advantage at present, because there are no great steamship lines 
 in summer to carry their products to the British market. In this 
 respect the farmers of Ontario, although much farther from 
 England, have an advantage for they can ship their products by 
 the great steamships that run from Montreal to British ports. 
 
 The announcement that great iron and steel works are to be 
 established at Sydney has had an extraordinary effect upon the 
 people throughout these provinces. A Montreal business man who 
 has just returned from a trip to the East says that this great 
 enterprise is talked of everywhere, and that a feeling of confidence 
 is being aroused by it that will help all lines of business. There 
 is a rapidly growing belief that capital is at last to flow freely 
 into the provinces to develop their great natural resources. Mr. 
 Henry M. Whitney, President of both the Dominion Coal Com- 
 pany and the Dominion Iron and Steel Company, has great con- 
 fidence in the future of the Maritime Provinces and it will be to 
 the interest of his companies to promote their development, for a 
 large population in these provinces would make a local market 
 for the products of the blast furnaces and steel mills. Moreover, 
 if steamship lines ran from Charlottetown, Halifax, Yarmouth 
 and St John to Sydney during the summer months the products 
 of all sections of the provinces might be collected at Sydney fof 
 
shipment to Europe, South America, Africa and Asia in great cargo 
 ships, together with pig iron and steel, just as the lake vessels 
 and railways bring the products of Ontario and the North- West 
 to Montreal, where they are transferred to great ocean vessels. 
 
 However, the success of this great enterprise will not depend 
 upon the local market. In selecting a site for an iron and steel 
 industry, the first essential is cheap raw materials. The second 
 is accessibility to the markets of the world. The shrewd business 
 men who form the directorate of the Dominion Iron and Steel 
 Company confidently believe that Sydney possesses greater 
 advantages in these respects than any other locality in America. 
 The harbours of Sydney and Louisburg are the front doors 
 of Canada. They might be called magic doors, for they open 
 wonderfully into short passages to the leading markets of the 
 world. It is an extraordinary fact that Sydney and Louisburg, 
 while more than 2,200 miles nearer to Liverpool than New 
 Orleans and Mobile, are at the same time nearly 600 miles nearer 
 to Peniambuco, Rio Janeiro and Buenos Ayres, and nearly 900 
 miles nearer to Cape Town, South Africa. This is because ham- 
 shaped South America lies far to the east of North America, 
 while New Orleans, Mobile and other ports on the Gulf of 
 Mexico are a long distance west of the Atlantic ocean. Moreover 
 ships from Southern ports of the United States cannot take a 
 direct route because they have to steer cleai of the West India 
 Island?. Cape Breton jutting far eastward into the Atlantic, is 
 much nearer to a direct line drawn north from the east coast of 
 South America. And the gulf ports are not the only ones over 
 which the Cape Breton ports have an advantage. The whole 
 Atlantic coast of the United States slopes away to the .south west, 
 and Savannah, Charleston, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New 
 York are so far to the west of the direct routes from Sydney and 
 Louisburg that the Cape Breton ports, although farther north, 
 are much nearer to the chief ports of South America and Africa. 
 The most eastern point of South America is Pernambuco. All 
 vessels going south of that point to Rio Janeiro, Buenos Ayres or 
 other South American ports must pass it. The following tables 
 of distances in nautical miles will show the wonderful advantage 
 that Sydney has over all American ports for trading with Great 
 Britain and other countries of Europe, South America, Africa, 
 and Asia : 
 
 TO LIVERPOOL. 
 Sydney Harbour to Liverpool Miles, 
 
 (via N. Ireland) 2,283 
 
 (via S. Ireland) ., 2,307 
 
 New Orleans to Liverpool 4iSS3 
 
 Mobile •• «« 4,506 
 
 Savannah •• «« 3»57i 
 
 Charleston «« '< 3»Soo 
 
 Newport News " *• 3»'S7 
 
 Baltimore " " 3»324 
 
 Philadelphia " •« 3,160 
 
 New York ** " 3fil0 
 
12 
 
 TO PERNAMBUCO. 
 
 Miles. 
 
 Sydney Harbour to Pernambuco 3>567 
 
 New Orleans << " 4>I46 
 
 Mobile " " 4«I33 
 
 Savannah " " 3i66o 
 
 Charleston •« •• 31631 
 
 Newport News •' •• • 3i59' 
 
 Baltimore *• " 3,758 
 
 Philadelphia " ♦• 3,746 
 
 New York " •• 3,696 
 
 TO CAPE TOWN. 
 
 Miles. 
 
 Sydn(?y Harbour to Cape Town • 6,467 
 
 New Orleans " " 7i35S 
 
 Mobile, Ala •< " 7>309 
 
 Savannah " «' 6,867 
 
 Charleston " •• 6,831 
 
 Newport News " " 6>736 
 
 Baltimore *' " 6,903 
 
 Philadelphia " " 6,870 
 
 New York •• '• 6,787 
 
 The distances from Sydney to the various points were 
 furnished by Capt. W. H. Smith, R.N.R., Chairman Board of 
 Examiners of Masters and Mates, Marine Department, Halifax, 
 while the distances from various American ports were compiled 
 by the United States Commissioner of Navigation. Louisburg 
 is not given in the above tables, but the distances from Sydney 
 and Louisburg are practically the same. Only points on the east 
 coast of South America and the west coast of Africa are given 
 for comparison, but it will be evident to all who examine the 
 maps that Sydney must have the same advantage of distance in 
 trading with the west coast of South America and the east coast 
 of Africa. It applies also to the whole Pacific coast of North 
 America, to Asia and Australia. It seems strange but it is a fact 
 that Sydney is nearer to San Francisco than any Atlantic or gulf 
 port of the United States. The distances given are for routes 
 for full powered steamships. 
 
 Sydney Harbour is a magnificent one, in which all the fleets 
 of the great powers might ride in safety without crowding one 
 another. It is not only long and wide, but very deep. In the 
 South Arm, which constitutes the port of Sydney, the general 
 depth is from 42 to 54 feet, except close to the shore, and at the 
 small wharf in front of the town of Sydney it is 30 feet deep. It 
 is claimed that this harbour is more easy of entrance than any 
 other in America, the mouth being wide and absolutely free from 
 rocks and shoals. There are two bars, one on each side of the 
 harbour at some distance from the mouth, which give absolute 
 protection from ocean storms to the ports of Sydney and North 
 
13 
 
 Sydney, but the water Ijetween them is wide and deep, and the 
 soundings from the deep sea converge toward the inner harbour 
 in such a way that mariners entering these ports can have 
 absolute assurance that they are free from all dangers. Vessels 
 passing out of the harbour enter at once into the open sea, and 
 can go at full speed. The ocean routes from Sydney and 
 Louisburg are well clear of Sable Island, and vessels making for 
 these ports avoid all the dangers of that ' ' graveyard of the 
 Atlantic." The ferry boats on Sydney Harbour between the 
 towns of Sydney and North Sydney usually run from the 20th of 
 April to the 15th of January. The earliest closing in ten years 
 was the 7th of January, and the latest the 4th of February. The 
 earliest opening was the 3rd of April, and the latest the rst of 
 May. It would not be a difficult matter to keep the harbour 
 itself open all winter, but ice sometimes blocks the gulf and 
 Cabot strait. However, Mr. Reid's steamer Bruce, ran all last 
 winter between Sydney Harbour and Newfoundland, and in view 
 of the success of Russia in keeping up communication with its 
 far northern ports by means of ships that break down ice twenty 
 feet thick it is probable that communication between Sydney and 
 Europe could easily be maintained throughout the year by 
 keeping one such ship to break the way for other vessels. 
 However, the harbour of Louisburg, which possesses all the 
 advantages of Sydney as regards short distances from all the 
 markets of the world, is open throughout the year. It is a beautiful 
 harbour, although not as capacious as that of Sydney, and has a 
 depth of fiom 54 to 66 feet. It is said to be the only port this 
 side of the Atlantic where coal could be obtained at mine prices 
 in winter. I/)uisburg is connected with Sydney by a railway 
 about 40 miles in length, belonging to the Dominion Coal 
 Company, and can be used by the Dominion Iron and Steel 
 Company during the short period when Sydney Harbour is closed. 
 For nine months of the year the route to Sydney is absolutely free 
 from all dangers of ice, and it is claimed that its approaches are 
 situated north of the large fog areas indicated on the ' ' Pilot chart 
 of the North Atlantic," so prevalent from the Grand Banks of 
 Newfoundland tO Sandy Hook, and sometimes westward to the 
 Delaware. 
 
 Mr. George Dobson, secretary of the Sydney Harbour Board, 
 recently published a pamphlet advocating that the fast Atlantic 
 steamships on their way to Quebec or Montreal, in summer, 
 should make North Sydney a port of call. He argued that the 
 distance would be only 1 50 miles greater than by the Belle Isle 
 route, and that as steamships could go at full speed all the way 
 without fear of icebergs or fogs, better time could be made. 
 Mails could be landed at North Sydney and forwarded by fast 
 trains to the West. Sir Sanford Fleming is also an advocate of 
 this route. 
 
 The advantages of Sydney as a coaling port are well known 
 to seamen and many vessels trading between American ports and 
 
14 
 
 Europe call there for coal. By doing so they are able to carry 
 larger cargoes. In the year 1898 there entered Sydney Harbour, 
 including the ports of Sydney and North Sydney, from the ocean 
 909 vessels besides 641 vessels engagea in the coasting trade. It 
 may be noted that the number of vessels entering Montreal from 
 the sea was 465 and those engaged in the coasting trade 3759. 
 Being the nearest point to Europe and having a cable station, 
 many vessels call at Sydney Harbour for orders which are cabled 
 by their owners. 
 
 The works of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company will be 
 located at this magnificent harbour of Sydney close to the town 
 of Sydney and in the centre of one of the greatest coal fields in 
 the world. On the other side of the harbour directly opposite the 
 works are very large supplies of limestone. There are valuable 
 deposits of magnetic iron ore a few miles away and numerous 
 discoveries of other varieties of iron ore have been made in Cape 
 Breton, but the Company own the most remarkable iron mine in 
 the world on Great Bell Island, Newfoundland, and the ore can 
 be mined and loaded on ships so cheaply that for the present the 
 supplies of iron ore will be chiefly drawn from this source. 
 
 James M. Swank, secretary of the American Iron and Steel 
 Association, says : "From the iron ore mines of Michigan and 
 Minnesota to the coal of Pennsylvania the distance is 1000 miles. 
 Connelsville coke is taken 600 miles to the blast furnaces of 
 Chicago and 750 miles to the blast furnaces of St. Louis. The 
 average distance over which all the domestic iron consumed 
 in the blast furnaces of the United States is transported is not 
 less than 400 miles, and the average distance over which the 
 fuel which is used to smelt it is transported is not less than 200 
 miles. ' ' 
 
 The first furnaces in the Pittsburg district were started on 
 local ores, but now almost the entire supply comes from the Lake 
 Superior mines. The only blast furnaces of the Unit^^d States 
 that have their raw materials close together are in the Southern 
 States. Of these the most favourably located are those of the 
 Birmingham district in Alabama where fuel and ore are very close 
 together. Moreover, the Alabama furnaces are far from the 
 leading markets and the freight rates on the pig iron have to be 
 added to the cost of production. The nearest seaport is Mobile, 
 276 miles by rail from Birmingham, the centre of the iron district. 
 It is 349 miles by rail from Birmingham to New Orleans, 448 
 miles to Savannah, 476 miles to Charleston, 766 miles to Newport 
 News, 804 miles to Baltimore, 855 miles to Philadelphia and 794 
 miles to Pittsburg. The freight from Birmingham to Mobile is 
 one dollar per ton, to New Orleans $1.40, to Savannah or Charles- 
 ton $1,75, to Cincinnati $2.75, to St. Louis $3.25, to Louisville, 
 Ky., $2.50, to Baltimore by the all rail route $5.33, or by rail and 
 water $3. 75, to Boston all rail $5. 83, or by rail and water $4. 10. 
 
 The iron ore of Pittsburg has to be brought from the mines 
 of Northern Michigan and Minnesota by rail to a Lake Superior 
 
15 
 
 port, and there loaded on vessels, after which it must be carried 
 through Lake Superior, the Sault Canal, Lake Huron, Lake 
 St. Clair, the tortuous channel of the Detroit River and Lake 
 Erie to Cleveland and other Lake Erie ports, where it is trans- 
 ferred to railways to be transported to the furnaces. This makes 
 three handlings of the ore between the Lake Superior mines and 
 the furnaces as compared with one handling of the ore which 
 will be used at Sydney. When the iron and steel is made Pittsburg 
 is an excellent centre for distribution of the product in the central 
 States, but it is a considerable distance from the seaboard and 
 iron intended for shipment to foreign countries has to go by rail 
 to Philadelphia 354 miles, to New York 445 miles, or to Boston 
 675 miles. The distance from Pittsburg to Montreal is 710 miles 
 by rail as compared with the water route of about 726 miles from 
 the works at Sydney to Montreal, but transportation is much 
 cheaper by water than by rail. 
 
 
The Strangest Iron Mine in the World. 
 
 From the Montreal Daily Star, September 23, i8gg. 
 
 II. 
 
 ^HE Wabana iron mine which was recently pur- 
 chased by the Dominion Iron and Steel Company 
 for a million dollars, is on Great Bell Island, 
 in Conception Bay, Newfoundland, about 35 
 miles from St. John's. Experts pronounce it to be the most 
 remarkable iron mine in the world, and even the ordinary tourist, 
 who knows nothing about minerals, can appreciate its peculiar 
 formation. The ore bed consists of small regular blocks of red 
 
 hematite, most of them about four inches long, two inches wide 
 and two inches thick, but some of them considerably larger. 
 These blocks are piled one upon another and close together just 
 as a child piles up wooden blocks, making a bed of ore of an 
 average thickness of eight feet extending over 817 1-2 acres, 
 which is estimated to contain over 28,000,000 tons of available 
 ore besides the areas under the sea which will be referred to later 
 on. The ore crops up at the surface and mining in the ordinary 
 sense is not required. It is only necessary to shake the blocks 
 of ore apart and they can be shovelled into cars without trouble. 
 Indeed, as each of the little blocks of ore appears to be separate 
 from the others, although they are piled very close together, it 
 would probably be possible to pick them from the bed by hand, 
 or knock them apart with a crow-bar, but this would be a tedious 
 and expensive process and in order to loosen large quantities at 
 once dynamite is used. 
 
 The Star is indebted to Mr. R. E. Chambers, M.E., manager 
 at the mine, for most of the following information about the 
 mine. There are in all five beds of ore exposed in the cliffs upon 
 the northern side of Bell Island, but three of these extend over so 
 small an area and are so thin that they are of little commercial 
 value. The other two are known as the upper and lower beds, 
 the former, which is estimated to contain six million tons, being 
 still owned by the Nova Scotia Steel Company, which sold the 
 lower bed containing 28,000,000 tons to the Dominion Iron and 
 Steel Company. Both beds have the same peculiar formation. 
 The outcrop of the lower bed is seen in the cliffs on the north side 
 
i8 
 
 of the island, its western extremity being at Ochre Cove and 
 its eastern near Gull Island head. It extends for a distance of 
 3 1-2 miles without any apparent dislocation of the strata, and the 
 ore is exposed over most of its extent, giving unusual facilities 
 for open cut working. There is little doubt that 200 feet of this 
 outcrop can be mined open cut over the greater part of this 
 distance, giving about three million tons of ore, and when this is 
 worked out many times that amount can be mined underground 
 with natural drainage. When the 34,000,000 tons of ore avail- 
 able on the island are exhiiusted, which will not be for many 
 years, the ore beds can be followed under the sea just as some of 
 the coal mines in Cape Breton extend under the sea. Mr. Cham- 
 bers thinks there is no doubt that enormous quantities of the ore 
 could be obtained by following the ore bed under the sea. 
 
 The shipping facilities are excellent. Great Bell Island is 
 eight miles long and two miles wide. The north side, where the 
 ore is situated, is exposed to northern winds, but on the opposite 
 side, where the shipping pier is located, there is a very good har- 
 bour, perfectly sheltered from the winds. The waters of the bay 
 are deep and free from rocks and shoals ; the bottom being mud 
 near the pier affords admirable anchorage. Near the island the 
 Admiralty charts show from 48 to 84 feet of water. The bay is 
 navigable from eight to nine months of the year. The mine is 
 connected with the pier by a double track cable tramway. This 
 tramway is 2-foot gauge and two miles in length, and is operated 
 by an endless steel cable 15-16 inch in diameter and four miles in 
 length. There are 377 cars. It is an interesting sight to seethe 
 long rows oi cars loaded with the little blocks of red ore moving 
 towards the pier. The pier is 45 by 65 feet, and 90 feet high, 
 constructed of Southern pine, which is supported upon 190 
 bearing piles surrounded by a crib-work of heavy timber filled 
 with stone. There are ten pockets of 200 tons capacity each at a 
 height sufficient to discharge into a steamer by gravity. The 
 chutes for this purpose descend at an angle of 40 degrees and are 
 moved by a counterbalanced winch, easily operated by one man. 
 The cars are dumped by an automatic tipple, upset by the weight 
 of the loaded car and returned to an upright position by cast iron 
 counterbalance weights hung upon a shaft beneath the floor. In 
 loading a steamer 200 tons have been discharged from one pocket 
 in ten minutes. Two thousand five hundred tons a day can be 
 shipped with the present facilities, and improvements can be made 
 by the Dominion Iron and Steel Company to increase the output 
 when required. 
 
 The depth of water at the pier is 24 feet at low tide, increas- 
 ing rapidly away from the shore. The access is easy, unobstruct- 
 ed by rocks or shoals. The cost of mining ore and loading it on 
 vessels is only from twenty-five to thirty cents a ton. The first 
 shipment of ore was made in December, 1895, and since then 
 about 600,000 tons have been shipped. This year 300,000 tons 
 have been shipped. The terms of the Newfoundland mineral act 
 
'9 
 
 are very favourable to the operators in resjard to security of title, 
 the only condition being the expenditure of $6000 for each square 
 mile, no Govenunent royalty being demanded. In this case the 
 necessary expenditure has been largely exceeded in the equip- 
 ment of the property by the Nova Scotia Steel Company. 
 
 The exact way in which the ore from this Newfoundland 
 mine and coke made from Cape Breton coal will work together in 
 the furnace is not a matter of conjecture. The Nova Scotia 
 Steel Company has been using Cape Breton coke and Newfound- 
 land ore together at Fcrrona, with very great success for several 
 years. The coal is carried from Cape Breton to Ferrona, where 
 it is manufactured into coke. There are large coal mines in 
 Pictou county, in the vicinity of Ferrona, and Pictou coke has 
 been extensively used for smelting purposes, but large quantities 
 of Cape Breton coke have also been used. The furnace at Fer- 
 rona is supposed to have a capacity of eighty tons a day, but it 
 has been found that no tons a day can be made with Cape Bre- 
 ton coke and Newfoundland ore, as they work so easily together 
 in the furnace. As already stated, each of the four furnaces at 
 Sydney will have a capacity of 250 tons of pig iron per day, but 
 in view of the experience at Ferrona, it is thought that this may 
 be considerably exceeded. 
 
 At present the ore is being sent to the furnace of the Nova 
 Scotia Steel Company at Ferrona, to Rotterdam, Holland, to 
 Baltimore and other points in the United States, but when the 
 Dominion Iron and Steel Company's furnaces at Sydney go into 
 blast the ore will be reserved for their use. The four furnaces 
 will turn out between three and four hundred thousand tons of 
 pig iron annually and it takes less than two tons of iron ore to 
 make a ton of pig iron, so that the 28,000,000 tons of ore in this 
 mine would be sufficient to supply these furnaces for more than 
 a quarter of a century without going beneath the sea. However, 
 the Company will probably build other furnaces in a few years 
 as the demand for their products increases. 
 
 But the Dominion Iron and Steel Company will not be en- 
 tirely dependant upon this mine for supplies. There are many 
 other deposits of iron ore in Newfoundland, situated near to the 
 sea, and, while it is not probable that any of them can be mined 
 so cheaply as the peculiar ore beds of Great Bell Island, they 
 will no doubt compare favourably with mines in other places. 
 Then the Company also owns a valuable iron mine in the Santi- 
 ago district of Cuba, and ore from this mine can be brought to 
 Louisburg at all seasons of the year. There are iron ore deposits 
 in almost every section of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and 
 some of them are of superior quality. Any one who has read 
 the Government geological reports and the writings of Sir Wil- 
 liam Dawson and other scientists who have studied the geology 
 of the Maritime Provinces must be impressed with the wide- 
 spread indications of iron in these Provinces. 
 
20 
 
 Nothing else has contributed so much to the cheapening of 
 iron ore in the West as the increased size of the vessels that navi- 
 gate the upper lakes. It is a well known fact that the larger the 
 cargo a ship can take the cheaper freight rates will be. But 
 there is a limit to the size of boats that can go through the Sault 
 canals and get into the lake ports. The Sault canals would have 
 to be greatly enlarged and the lake harbours would have to be 
 deepened at enormous expense before boats drawing twenty-four 
 feet of water, such as can reach the pier at Great Bell Island at 
 low tide, could be accommodated. And most of the harbours in 
 the Maritime Provinces are deeper than that at Great Bell Island. 
 Indeed these Provinces abound in magnificent harbours capable 
 of accommodating not only the largest ships now on the ocean, 
 but much bigger ships than any yet built. 
 
 Ore from the Lake Superior mines can only be shipped by 
 water for about seven months of the year, lake navigation being 
 closed during the winter. There are thirteen harbours in New 
 Brunswick and Nova Scotia open throughout the year, viz. , St. 
 John and St. Andrews in New Brunswick and Halifax, Louis- 
 burg, Yarmouth, Annapolis, Barrington, Liverpool, Lockport, 
 Lunenburg, Parrsboro and Shelboume in Nova Scotia, besides a 
 host of good harbours which are open nine months of the year. 
 The iron ores in every section of the Maritime Provinces are 
 within easy reach of seaports and could be transported to 
 Sydney or Louisburg at all season of the year. Valuable iron 
 ores have been found in various sections of Quebec province, 
 and ores from all parts of Quebec province could be cheaply 
 shipped to Sydney, during the summer. But Cape Breton itself 
 appears to be well supplied with iron ores according to the re- 
 ports of the Government geologists. 
 
 In making iron it is often advantageous to mix different ores 
 together to get various qualities of iron. The wonderful geo- 
 graphical position of Sydney and Louisburg, with their deep 
 water harbours, nearer to all quarters of the world than any 
 other seaports of the American continent, will give the Dominion 
 Iron and Steel Company a very great advantage in bringing ore 
 from any outside point for such intermixture. 
 
Value of the Great Bell Island Mine. 
 
 From the Montreal Daily Star, September aj, z8gg. 
 
 '^ 
 
 T 
 
 III. 
 
 *N preceding articles of this series it has been 
 shown that Pittsburg, the leading iron-making 
 centre of the United States, gets nearly all its 
 iron ore from the mines south of Lake 
 Superior, and that the ore has to be carried first by rail, then by 
 water, and again by rail for about a thousand miles, involving 
 three handlings, before it reaches the blast furnaces, while the 
 ore to be used by the Dominion Iron and Steel Company in the 
 blast furnaces at Sydney will come from the Great Bell Island 
 mine in Conception Bay, Newfoundland, about 400 miles dis- 
 tant from Sydney, and will only have to be handled once, being 
 loaded at the mine upon large ships that will lay it down at the 
 pier of the Company right beside the blast furnaces. 
 
 It has been stated that the ore of Great Bell Island can be 
 mined and loaded on ships for from twentj'^-five to thirty cents 
 per ton. This is not a matter of conjecture, but of actual ex- 
 perience extending over several years in which 600,000 tons of 
 ore have been mined and shipped. No royalty has to be paid. 
 Some idea of the freight rate from Great Bell Island to Sydney 
 can be obtained from the freight rates on the ores shipped froni 
 Lake Superior ports to Oh; j ports, a much longer distance. The 
 average rate during 1898 on iron ore shipped from Escanaba to 
 Ohio ports was 50.8c ; from Marquette to Ohio ports, 59.8c ; 
 head of Lake Superior to Ohio ports, 6ic. The average rate dur- 
 ing the pfst ten years has been: From Escanaba, 67c ; from Mar- 
 quette, 83c ; from the head of Lake Superior, 94c. During 
 recent years the rates have been lowered owing to the increased 
 size of the boats navigating the Upper Lakes. Most of the 
 ore from Lake Superior was brought down to Lake Erie ports 
 last year in the large 6000-ton ships which were put in com- 
 mission in 1897. It was found that the smaller boats could not 
 compete with them. 
 
Tl''' distance from Great Bell Island to Sydney being mucli 
 short'.r and through much deeper waters without any canals to 
 go tl rough, or any tortuous, narrow channels to navigate, larger 
 carj;oes could be carried and better time could be made, so that 
 the freight rate on ore should be lower. It may, therefore, be 
 avssumed that the cost of laying down ore it the Sydney blast 
 furnaces, including mining, loading, shipping and unloading, 
 will not exceed one dollar per ton, and it may be considerably 
 less. Let us compare this with the cost of ore in other places. 
 At Cleveland, Ohio, according to The Mineral Industry, the prices 
 fixed last year by the agents handling ores were as follows : 
 Hematite ores, Bessemer quality, $2.55 to $3.25 ; hematite ores, 
 non-Bessemer quality, $2.10 to $2.25. The annual statistical re- 
 port of the American Iron and Steel Association gives the prices 
 at which sales were made early in 1899, for season delivery at 
 Cleveland, as follows : No. i Bessemer hematites, $2.80 to $3.25 ; 
 soft hematites. No. i, non-Bessemer, $2.00 to $2.15. From 
 Cleveland to Pittsburg the iron ore has to be carried by rail and 
 the freight rate on ore must be added. 
 
 The Stateman's Year Book, says that in the year 1897 the 
 United Kingdom imported 5,968,680 tons of iron ore, the value 
 of which was ;^4,436,oo4, that is, 14s. lod. per ton, equal to 
 about $3.60 per ton, in Canadian money. From 1893 to 1897 "i- 
 elusive, 24,336,814 tons were imported, and the value was ;^i6,- 
 963,370, that is, 14s. per ton, equal to about $3.40 per ton in 
 Canadian money. At the present time Spanish hematite ores 
 laid down in Glasgow are selling at 15s. to 17s. per ton, that is, 
 from $3.65 to $4. 15 per ton. "The Iron and Coal Trades Re- 
 view," published in London, Eng., in its issue of September i, 
 1899, states that the price of hematite ore at the mines on the 
 west coast of England on August 31 was i6s. equal to $3.90. 
 
 The Nova Scotia Steel Company has been selling Great Bell 
 Island ore in Rotterdam at a price which amounted to $1.15 per 
 ton at the mine, after deducting the cost of transportation, giv- 
 ing them a profit of 85 or 90 cents per ton, and we understand 
 that the Dominion Iron and Steel Company have assurances that 
 they can sell ore in Rotterdam for delivery next year at from 1 5 
 to 16 marks per ton, which would give them from $1.65 to $1.90 
 at the mine, after paying the cost of mining and transportation, 
 making the profit on every ton of ore mined for export from 
 $1-35 to $1.60. 
 
 The iron ore supplies of Great Britain, Germany and other 
 iron manufacturing countries of Europe are rapidly becoming ex- 
 hausted. Great Britain has for years been drawing supplies 
 from Spain and other outside countries. The making of iron is 
 not a new thing. In the 4th chapter of Genesis Tubal- caiQ is 
 described as an "instructor of every artificer in brass and iron," 
 and nearly all the ancient writers refer to the use of iron. In 
 all the ages that have passed since Tubal-cain first began to work 
 
23 
 
 in metals, iron has been used in various industries, and when 
 we consider how many millions of men have lived and died since 
 then, it is not at all surprising that the supplies of iron ore in the 
 old world are running out. Great Britain has been making enor- 
 mous quantities of iron for generations, and great as are the 
 natural resources of those little islands, the supplies of the raw 
 materials cannot hold out much longer at the present rate of 
 consumption. Long before the mines of Europe are completely 
 exhausted the scarcity of ore is likely to enhance the price. 
 
 According to Mr. R. P. Rothwell, a well-known American 
 authority on iron, the production of pig-iron in the iron-making 
 countries of the world in 1898 required the mining and handling 
 of approximately 70,000,000 tons of ore. The United States 
 alone consumed 21,772,750 tons of iron ore in 1898, of which 
 14,029,683 tons were mined in the Lake Superior district, 4,980,- 
 000 tons in the Southern States and i ,678,500 tons i.i other states. 
 Besides this hoiae production of iron ores 187,219 tons were im- 
 ported into the United States from abroad as compared with 489,- 
 970 tons imported during the preceding year, tl^e decrease in 
 imports being largely due to the war with Spain. The great 
 iron manufacturers of the United States are growing alarmed lest 
 their supplies of ore should run short and have been buying up 
 iron mines. In Great Britain it is estimated that 14,000,000 tons 
 of ore were mined and 5,468,395 tons imported last year. In 
 Germany 15,893,246 metric tons of ore were mined. 
 
 The London Economist recently discussing the probability 
 of Great Britain losing its supremacy in the manufacture of iron 
 and steel, said : "It must be remembered for how long a period 
 the mines in this country have been worked. The output of 
 blackband ore in Scotland has been decreasing for 3'ears past, 
 and the greater portion of the pig-iron now made in that district 
 is from foreign ores. Cleveland which has been one of the most 
 prolific districts in the country, has now been worked nearly 
 fifty yei-^s, and the best ore having been taken out first, we may 
 soon have to fall back on the poorer, and consequently costlier 
 kinds. It has been known for some time past that the best 
 hematite ores in the Bilbao district in northern Spain are fast 
 deteriorating, and if we have to fall back on the poorer qualities, 
 those containing a lower percentage of iron, they will be more 
 costly, owing to the proportionately greater cost of carriage by 
 sea." 
 
 In another issue the Economist says : "As the production of 
 Great Britain cannot very readily be extended, owing to the dif- 
 ficulty of obtaining ore, it seems probable that the United States 
 will have to supply the bulk of the additional three million tons 
 of pig-iron which are likely to be required during the next three 
 years. ' ' 
 
 It has been thought that the Lake Superior mines were in- 
 exhaustible, but before the boom of this year it was considered a 
 
24 
 
 most significant fact that some of the most experienced American 
 companies were quietly buying ore mines, which two or three 
 years previously were closed down, because their ores were un- 
 saleable in competition with the best ores of Lake Superior. 
 
 Taking into consideration the increasing demand for iron ore 
 and the fact that the supplies are becoming exhausted in many 
 sections where they were formerly plentiful, it is evident that 
 the Dominion Iron and Steel Company might make a great deal 
 of money by simply exporting iron ore from their wonderful 
 Newfoundland mine, but there is more money to be made in con- 
 verting the ore into pig-iron and steel, and it will be far better 
 for Canada, as thousands of men will be employed in the coal 
 mines, coke ovens, blast furnaces and steel mills of Sydney, and 
 the industries that will grow up around them. 
 
 
Cheap Coke for The Sydney Furnaces. 
 
 Prom the Montreal Daily Star, September 30, xSgg, 
 
 4' 
 
 IV. 
 
 N selecting a site for blast furnaces it is always 
 considered desirable to get as near to coal 
 mines as possible. The iron ore is usually car. 
 ried a long distance, but furnaces that have to bring their fuel 
 from a distance are at a great disadvantage. It is much 
 more economical to carry the iron ore to the coal than the coal 
 to the ore. It is true that some of the furnaces in the United 
 States bring both their ore and their fuel from a distance, the 
 Chicago blast furnaces, for example, getting their coke from 
 Connellsville, Pa., and their iron ore from the Lake Superior 
 mines, but iron can be manufactured much more cheaply when 
 the furnaces and the coke ovens are close to the coal mines. The 
 Dominion Iron and Steel Company are particularly fortunate in 
 having secured a site for their works in the centre of one of the 
 greatest coal fields of the world. The Sydney coal field occupies 
 an area of about 200 square miles, and has productive coal mea- 
 sures exceeding 6,000 feet in thickness. 
 
 It is one thing to have coal, and another thing to have coal suit- 
 able for fuel in making iron, but there is no doubt that at least 
 four of the mines owned by the Dominion Coal Company within 
 a short distance of the blast furnaces now being constructed by 
 the Dominion Iron and Steel Company, produce coal which 
 makes coke exceedingly well adapted for the blast furnace. This 
 has been shown not only by an analysis of the coal, but also by 
 using the coke extensively in the blast furnace at Ferrona, with 
 Great Bell Island ore, for several years. 
 
 The Dominion Iron and Steel Company have made most 
 favourable arrangements with the Dominion Coal Company for 
 securing any quantity of coal that may be desired at a very 
 satisfactory price. Mr. Henry M. Whitney is president of both 
 companies, and until January, 1903, the Iron and Steel Com- 
 pany will have the option of leasing the Dominion Coal Company, 
 
26 
 
 including all its mines and the Sydney and Louisburg Railway, 
 for ninety-nine years, on condition of paying the fixed charges, 
 and six per cent, annually on common stock. Whether the di- 
 rectorate of the Iron and Steel Company decide to lease the Coal 
 Company or not, the contract between the two companies per- 
 manently assures to the Iron and Steel Co. an ample supply of 
 cheap fuel. 
 
 The coal of Cape Breton is bituminous. The different fuels 
 used in blast furnaces are charcoal, anthracite coal and coke 
 from bituminous coal. Charcoal is an expensive fuel, and while 
 it makes a superior iron, it is usually too costly to be used for 
 ordinary purposes. At one time all iron was made with charcoal 
 as fuel, and there is still a considerable demand for charcoal iron 
 for making car wheels and some other purposes. It is also used 
 to a certain extent for admixture with iron made with anthracite 
 or coke as fuel. But the cost of iron and steel for ordinary pur- 
 poses has been greatly reduced by the use of coal and coke. 
 
 Bituminous coal contains much more volatile matter than 
 anthracite, and it is, therefore, unsuitable for the blast furnace 
 until the volatile constituents are taken out of it, when it is 
 called coke. Dr. Joseph D. Weeks, of Pittsburg, editor of the 
 American Manufacturer andiron World, who has made a study of 
 coke and coking for years and is regarded as one of the best au- 
 thorities in the United States on this subject, has described the 
 difference between anthracite coal and coke and the process of 
 coking most lucidly. He says : "Anthracite coal is solid, while 
 coke is porous, being filled with little cells. It is this porosity, 
 this cell space, that makes coke a more vigorous fuel than anthra- 
 cite, that is, it will burn more rapidly, just the same as a pound 
 of shavings will burn more rapidly than a pound of solid wood. 
 There is the same amount of heat in the .same weight of each, 
 but the one burns much more freely, much more rapidly, is a 
 much more vigorous fuel. It is this porosity of coke combined 
 with its toughness and hardness that in a large measure gives it 
 value as a blast furnace fuel much superior to anthracite. A 
 modern blast furnace, say i8 feet in diameter at thebOvShes, using 
 anthracite coal will do good work if it makes 400 tons a week. 
 A furnace of the same size using coke will make four times this 
 amount ; and a furnace is being built at Pittsburg to use coke as 
 fuel that will make at least 500 tons a day, a feat that would be 
 utterly impossible with anthracite as fuel. In our United States 
 practice the value of a blast furnace fuel depends largely upon 
 the rapidity with which it will do its work. It is the same in 
 many operations. We must do our woric quickly, and to do this 
 where heat is used, we need a quick-acting, vigorous fuel. This 
 gives a porous fuel like coke its great value. I could make a fuel 
 in a coke oven very like anthracite, provided I did my coking 
 under pressure, but I would destroy one of the most valuable 
 features of the coke as fuel, its porosity. 
 
27 
 
 •'Coking is simply the driving off from bituminous coals, 
 by the action of heat, of the volatile matter they contain. No 
 matter how coking is performed, whether it be in an illuminating 
 gas works or in a bee-hive or a by-product coke oven, what takes 
 place is always the same. As the heat is applied the coal begins to 
 swell, becomes pasty and sticky and throws ofif bubbles of gas. 
 In a word, the coal melts, loses all traces not only of its original 
 form, but of its appearance and structure as well, and the par- 
 ticles freed from volatile substances unite in a coherent mass or 
 as it is termed 'cake,' or 'coke.' As this melted coal solidi- 
 fies or ' cakes,' it encloses small bubbles of gas, which make 
 the cells like those in a piece of blast furnace coke if the ' gas- 
 sing * process has not been pushed too rapidly. But these 
 pores, these cells, can be made large or small. If the operation 
 is in a small body of coal and the ' gassing ' is pushed, you get 
 the weak coke with large cells, known as gas-hous2 coke, 
 that will hardly bear its own weight. But if the coking is done 
 under proper conditions, you get a hard, strong coke that will 
 bear the burden of the blast furnace. ' ' 
 
 It is evident from the above that bituminous coal when 
 properly coked makes the best fuel for a blast furnace. The 
 Dominion Iron and Steel Company have already given out the 
 contracts for the construction of 400 Otto-Hoffman by-product 
 coke ovens, which will be located between the iron works and 
 the coal mines, in the most convenient situation that could be 
 desired. These coke ovens, which will cost about $1,250,000, 
 will be of the most modern design, and will save all the by- 
 products of coal which are allowed to go to waste at nearly all 
 the coke ovens and blast furnaces in the United States. 
 
 The coke-ovens in general use in the United States are 
 known as bee-hive ovens, because they are dome-shaped. The 
 sole object aimed at in these ovens is to make coke, all the 
 valuable volatile constituents of the coal being lost. A lump of 
 bituminous coal is a storehouse in which a great variety of 
 valuable chemicals are locked up. The bee-hive oven sets them 
 free, or destroys them, and only saves one thing — the coke. The 
 by-product coke-ovens, which are now univ^ersally used in 
 Germany, which are rapidly displacing the bee-hive ovens in 
 England and Scotland, and are beginning to come into use in the 
 United States, are designed to save everything in the coal and 
 make practical use of all its constituents. 
 
 Dr. Weeks has given the following description of the two 
 kinds of ovens : ' ' The bee-hive oven, which takes its name from 
 its shape, is usually in the Connellsville region of Pennsylvania, 
 12 feet in diameter, by 7 feet high, with two openings, one in the 
 top, through which the coal is charged into the oven and through 
 which the burning gavSes and waste products of combustion escape 
 into the air ; and the larger opening or door in the front, through 
 which the air is admitted for combustion, and out of which the 
 
2S 
 
 coke, after being burned and quenched, is drawn. Air is 
 admitted in this oven above the coal during the process of coking ; 
 the heat necessary for coking being derived partly from the 
 heat stored in the walls of the oven during the coking of the 
 furnace charge, but chiefly from the combustion in the oven of 
 the gases and a part of the coal. It requires 48 hours to coke a 
 charge of 5 tons of coal. The by-product oven, on the other 
 hand is a closed oven. No air is admitted into that portion of 
 the oven in which the coal is being coked. Consequently no 
 combustion takes place in the oven. The heat necessary for 
 coking comes from the combustion of gas and air in flues in the 
 side walls and the bottom of the oven, the heat passing through 
 the fire brick walls which separate these flues from the coking 
 chamber or oven proper. The by-product oven is a long narrow 
 oven, the coking chamber of which is from 25 to 33 feet long, 14 
 to 28 inches wide, and 5 1-2 to 7 feet high. It is charged through 
 two or more charging holes in the top ; the weight of the charge 
 being 5 to 8 net tons of coal. The time of coking is from 1 8 to 
 48 hours. The products that pass off are just as they come from 
 the coal. There is no air mixed with them at all, as there is in 
 the bee-hive oven. There is no waste of the carbon in the coal. 
 It is not so in the bee-hive oven. You burn a part of the coal in 
 the bee-hive oven in the process of coking the rest. The 
 advantage of coking without the admission of air is in the first 
 place that the total amount of carbon, which is in the coal, is 
 saved in the coke ; in the second place, a different kind of tar 
 and gas is produced from what would be formed in an open 
 bee-hive oven ; and in the third place, the action of the ovens 
 can be perfectly controlled, of course within limits, but the 
 limits are very broad. As to the by-products or those products 
 that go off with the volatile matter, the chief of these are 
 ammonia, which can be procured either as amnioniacal liquor 
 aqua ammonia or sulphate of ammonia ; tar, which is practically 
 the same as the coal tar of the illuminating gas works, making 
 gas from coal ; and gas which differs but little from illuminating 
 gas. 
 
 ' ' One word only abojiit the method of collecting these by- 
 products. Running along the top of the bank or block of by- 
 product ovens is a large pipe into which the gas evolved in coking 
 passes. All the gas trom all the ovens passes into this one pipe, 
 the result being that a gas of quite uniform composition is 
 produced. As it passes along the tar is condensed just as it is at 
 an illuminating gas works. The gas freed of its tar passes 
 through the ammonia scrubber in which the ammonia is taken 
 out of it precisely as it is in an ordinary gas works, only on a 
 much larger scale. The gas is then either purified and enriched 
 if necessary, and used for illuminating or heating purposes or it 
 can be returned to the ovens and burned in the flues for coking 
 the coal. In the latter case there is more gas than is necessary 
 
29 
 
 for coking, giving several thousand feet of tar gas, as it is called, 
 as well as a large amount of waste heat. ' ' 
 
 Dr. Weeks was sent by the United States Government to 
 England, Germany, France and Belgium to examine the coke 
 ovens there, and he has no hesitation in saying that the by- 
 product coke ovens make better coke for metallurgical purposes 
 than the bee-hive ovens. He says : ' ' The Germans, with by- 
 product coke, and with an ore greatly inferior to that we use 
 in our blast furnaces, are doing better work than we are. They 
 are using fewer pounds of coke to produce a ton of pig-iron with 
 poorer ore and by-product coke, than we are on the average with 
 our rich Lake Superior ores and our Conuellsville bee-hive coke. 
 These by-product ovens are no experiment. There are some 
 4,000 of them in operation in Europe to-day. The only reason 
 why the number of such ovens has not vastly increavSed is that 
 the amount of capital invested in ovens already erected in old 
 coke making vsections is so large that the owners hesitate to throw 
 it away. There are 45,000 ovens of the bee-hive pattern in the 
 United States. It would be a low calculation to say that they 
 cost $400 apiece. That is $18,000,000. One will hesitate a 
 good while before throwing away this amount of money. But 
 as new ovens are erected abroad, by-product ovens are being 
 built, and this will be true of the United States also." 
 
 The Dominion Iron and Steel Company, starting with every- 
 thing new, are fortunately not obliged to maintain antiquated 
 coke ovens. But they will not have to make any experiments. 
 The Otto-Hoffman ovens are in use everywhere in Germany, 
 several plants are in successful operation in the United States, 
 and the New England Gas and Coke Company, organized by Mr. 
 Henry M. Whitney to provide a market for Cape Breton coal, 
 have just constructed 400 of these ovens at Everett, a suburb 
 of Boston, so that the Dominion Iron and Steel Company will 
 have the advantage of their experience. The coke made at 
 Everett is sold to the railways and for domestic or industrial 
 fuel purposes, while the gas is used to supply Boston and its 
 suburbs with light and heat and for gas engines. At Sydney 
 the surplus gas will be used in the steel mill. 
 
 As no part of the coal is consumed in the process of manu- 
 facturing coke with the Otto- Hoffman coke oven the output of 
 coke is about 1 5 per cent, greater than from the bee-hive oven 
 with the same quantity of coal, but the chief advantage is in the 
 saving of the by-products, gas, ammonia and tar, which more 
 than pay the cost of turning the coal into coke. 
 
 With most of the uses of liquid ammonia the readers of The 
 Star are well acquainted, but very few appreciate the value of 
 sulphate of ammonia as a fertilizer. The chief constituent of 
 ammonia is nitrogen ; and as everybody knows nitrogen is the 
 fertilizer most required to make soils productive. 
 
30 
 
 In the course of a most interesting address advocating the 
 establishment of by-product coke ovens in the vicinity of Boston 
 before a Committee of the Massachusetts State I^egislature, Mr. 
 Henry M. Whitney said : 
 
 " Everybody who is familiar with agriculture knows that the 
 three essential elements of plant food are nitrogen, phosphoric 
 acid and potash. Now, we have, fortunately for this state, an 
 agricultural experiment station at Amherst which keeps in close 
 touch with the value of commercial fertilizers, of which the land 
 of this state and of New England is in such great need. A few 
 days ago I visited Amherst, and spent an evening with Prof. 
 Goessman, who has charge of this station. I felt certain that 
 while the theoretical value of barn-yard manures was a certain 
 quantity, yet that there was a certain amount of waste from the 
 time that it was dropped until it reached the field, and I was 
 anxious to find out what proportion of the theoretical whole was 
 preserved. I found that the experiment station nad made tests 
 [66,1 think, in all] of manures in various parts of this state to deter- 
 mine exactly what the manurial value in nitrogen, potash and 
 phosphorus is as it is put on the ground. These are Prof. Goess- 
 mann's conclusions : 
 
 Nitrogen, 4-10 of i per cent, equals 8 lbs,, at I2c per lb ; total value 96 
 
 Phosphoric acid, 2-10 of i per cent., or 4 lbs., at 5c per lb. ; total value . . .20 
 Potash, 3-10 of I per cent., or 6 lbs., at 4^c per lb. ; total value 27 
 
 Total value of one ton manure $i-43 
 
 Therefore if you were to buy commercial fertilizers contain- 
 ing the same amount of plant food that is found in a ton of 
 manure, you would pay for it $1.43. I do not undertake to say, Mr. 
 Chairman and Gentlemen, that there are not some other elements 
 in the manure that are of value to the soil, but I do undertake 
 to say that, so far as the experiments of the agricultural station 
 made with exceeding care have gone, you can purchase with $1.43 
 the same amount of nitrogen and potash and phosphoric acid as 
 you will find in a ton of manure. 
 
 * ' In every ton of bituminous coal burned to-day there is the 
 equivalent of 25 pounds of ammonia, which is the equivalent of 
 5 pounds of nitrogen, and at the same value at which it is reckoned 
 here as manure, there is a money value of 60 cents. The waste 
 of fertilizer in every six tons of bituminous coal which is burned 
 throughout New England, is equivalent to the manurial value of 
 an animal for a year. Now, what does it mean with reference 
 to the agricultural industry of Massachusetts, if all this nitrogen 
 could be saved and placed upon your soil ? It means that in the 
 6,000,000 tons of coal that are burned throughout New England 
 to-day there is a manurial value of a million of cattle. I know 
 of nothing more hopeful for the agriculture of this state nor of 
 New England, nor of the whole of this broad land, than that 
 capitalists are turning their attention to-day to the preserv^ation 
 
31 
 
 of this great amount of nitrogen which is needed for your ex 
 hausted soils. ' ' 
 
 It would be interesting to speculate upon the effect that the 
 saving of the nitrogen in the coal of Cape Breton may have upon 
 the agricultural future of the island. Cape Breton is green above 
 although black beneath. Its coasts do not present the rugged 
 appearance of the mainland of Nova Scotia. It is a hilly coun- 
 try, but the hills are neither high nor abrupt. Most of them 
 look as if they might be cultivated from top to bottom, and 
 some of them are. A Star man asked Mr. Hiram Donkin, resi- 
 dent manager of the Dominion Coal Company at Glace Bay, C. 
 B. , if much of the island could be successfully cultivated. 
 
 ' ' There are some excellent agricultural and pastoral dis- 
 tricts," said Mr. Donkin, "but in the coal districts the soil lacks 
 one important constituent. The coal seems to have robbed it 
 of its nitrogen, but Mr. Whitney proposes to take the nitrogen 
 from the coal in his coke ovens and restore it to the soil. That 
 is all that is required to make it fertile. ' ' 
 
 But Cape Breton will not be the sole market for the sulph- 
 ate of ammonia produced at the coke ovens of the Dominion Iron 
 and Steel Company. There should be a demand for it from 
 farmers in all parts of the Dominion to improve soils that have 
 been worn out, and no doubt the whole output could be sold in 
 Great Britain, where there is a brisk demand for it. A great 
 deal of the sulphate of ammonia produced at the coke ovens of 
 Germany is utilized by the farmers who grow beets for the 
 sugar factories, and the rapid development of beet sugar manu- 
 facture in the United States is likely to create a demand for it in 
 that country. Sir William Crooks, the well-known British 
 scientist, recently predicted that unless some new sources of 
 nitrogen should be discovered there would be a wheat famine in 
 a few years, as most of the wheat areas of the world are rapidly 
 having their nitrogen exhausted by continuously growing wheat. 
 At Everett, the New England Gas and Coke Company sell their 
 sulphate of ammonia for 2 1-2 cents per pound, and get about 
 30 lbs. from a ton of Cape Breton coal in the process of coking. 
 Assuming that only 28 lbs. of sulphate of ammonia will be ob- 
 tained at Sydney, and that the selling price will be only i 3-4 cts. 
 instead of 2 1-2 cents it will give 49 cents per ton of coal. The 
 by-product ovens at Everett also obtain from a ton of Cape 
 Breton coal about 12 1-2 gallons of tar which is sold at 2 cents 
 per gallon, and about 5,000 feet of gas which is sold at twenty 
 cents per thousand. At Sydney the surplus gas will be used in 
 the steel mill and it will be fair to estimate its value at the cost 
 of natural gas in the most prolific natural gas districts of the 
 United States, five cents per thousand. This will give the steel 
 mill as cheap fuel as if it were located in a natural gas district. 
 It is calculated that the quantity of gas produced at Sydney will 
 be somewhat less than at Everett as the coke will be treated 
 
32 
 
 somewhat differently to suit the blast furnaces, but it will not be 
 less thau 3.000 feet, which at five cents per thousand would be 
 fifteen cents per ton of coal. The quantity of tar obtained will 
 be about ten gallons, which at one cent per gallon, half the price 
 obtained in Boston, would give ten cents. Thus the value of 
 the ammonia, gas and tar obtained from each ton of coal will be 
 not less than 74 cents, while the cost of manufacturing the coke 
 and by-products will only be about 40 cents. This will bring 
 down the cost of fuel for the blast furnaces to a very low 
 figure. 
 
 It may be said, "If a lump of coal is a storehouse for a 
 great variety of chemicals, as stated, why only mention gas, am- 
 monia and tar ? What becomes of the other volatile constituents of 
 bituminous coal ? ' ' The answer is that many of tne constituents 
 of coal are preserved in the tar. Coal-tar is, as described by Dr. 
 Lunge, ' ' an extremely complex mixture of chemical compounds. ' ' 
 Dr. Lunge, in his work on Coal-Tar and Ammonia, gives an 
 enumeration of the constituents of coal-tar which fills three and 
 ahalf large pages, and it would occupy fully a column of the Star. 
 One of the most interesting constituents is aniline-benzol, which is 
 used for making aniline dyes. There are a great many chemical 
 works in Germany which utilize the tar produced at the by- 
 product coke ovens in connection with blast furnaces. It is not 
 improbable that enterprising capitalists may select Sydney as a 
 site for a tar distillery and chemical works, thus giving Canada 
 another industry The location would be most advantageous, 
 not only on account of the cheapness of the tar, but also on ac- 
 count of Sydney's nearness to all the important markets of the 
 world. But even without distilling, coal-tar is of value for many 
 purposes. It is used very extensively for the preservation of build- 
 ing materials of all kinds. Stones, as well as iron and wood, can 
 be preserved much longer and protected against atmospheric in- 
 fluences, by a coating of coal-tar. It is also used in the manu- 
 facture of roofing felt, and in making lamp-black, while owing 
 to its antiseptic property it is often used in England for painting 
 the floors of hospitals and barracks. 
 
The President and Directors. 
 
 Vrom the Montreal Daily Star, October X4, 1899, 
 
 V. 
 
 'ANADA is about to enter upon an industrial 
 contest with the leading nations of the world 
 in exporting iron and steel, and it is a matter 
 for congratulation that we can truthfully say, 
 " We have the ore, we have the fuel, we have the flux, we have 
 the men, we have the money too," 
 
 It has been shown that the Dominion Iron and Steel Co. will 
 have ample supplies of cheap ore and cheap fuel of the best 
 quality for their blast furnaces at Sydney, and it may be noted 
 that on the other side of Sydney harbour, directly opposite the 
 works, there are extensive beds of limestone which can be used 
 for flux. And the men ! In making iron and steel, good work- 
 men are as important as good and cheap raw material. A great 
 deal depends upon the intelligence, sobriety and health of the 
 workmen, and one of the many factors likely to contribute to the 
 success of the Dominion Iron and Steel Compan^- ' the character 
 of the people of the Maritime Provinces of Cam. . The writer 
 of these articles has visited every section of those provinces, and 
 everywhere he found bright, intelligent, sturdy, healthy-looking 
 people, temperate in their habits, honest, reliable, and quick to 
 understand. In the past the supply of labour has much exceeded 
 the demand, and thousands have emigrated to the United States. 
 Many of the best workmen in the cities of New England were 
 bom in the Maritime Provinces. There will be no difficulty in 
 securing good workmen for the blast furnaces, steel mills and 
 other industries of Sydney. 
 
 But much also depends upon the character of the men at 
 the head of the enterprise. What manner of men are the capital- 
 ists who have paid a million dollars for an iron mine and who 
 are expending many millions of dollars in constructing iron and 
 steel works on a scale that will enable them to compete with the 
 
34 
 
 largest iron and steel industries of the world ? Are they 
 men who are likely to fail to take advantage ot the favourable 
 conditions that have been described ? No one who has read the 
 names of the president and directors will have much doubt upon 
 this point. AH of them are well known as very successful busi- 
 ness men ; most of them have the reputation of being gifted with 
 what is called "the golden touch," because everything they 
 handle seems to turn into money ; and some of them have already a 
 world-wide reputation on account of the great enterprises in 
 which they have taken a prominent part. 
 
 The moving spirit in the enterprise, the man who will devote 
 most capital, time and energy to ensure the success of the under- 
 taking is Mr. Henry M. Whitney, President of the Dominion 
 Iron and Steel Company. Mr. Whitney was born in the town of 
 Conway, Mass., October 22, 1839. His father. Gen. James S. 
 Whitney, afterwards collector of the port of Boston, kept at that 
 time the principal store of the place, and it was there and sub- 
 sequently in the Conway bank that he began his business life, 
 after obtaining his education in the local schools and at 
 the Williston Seminary. The removal of his father's family 
 to Boston carried him with it, and for several years he was em- 
 ployed, first in the Custom House, then in one of the Boston 
 banks, and subsequently in the shipping business in New York 
 City. In 1886, he became under his father, who was president 
 of the corporation, the agent of the Metropolitan Steamship Com- 
 pany, having a line of freight steamers plying between Boston 
 and New York, an office which he has continued to hold up to 
 the present time. 
 
 In 1879, on the death of his father, he became president of 
 the company, and in the management of its affairs he exhibited 
 for the first time in a broad and striking manner the indomit- 
 able energy and resourcefulness of mind that have been char- 
 acteristic of so many of his subsequent business enterprises. 
 
 He had been for several years a large operator in real estate ; 
 but in 1886 he conceived the idea, that if a broad boulevard were 
 built out from Boston, through its most attractive suburb, the town 
 of Brookline, and a superior system of street car servnce were pro- 
 vided, the result could not fail to be advantageous to the commun- 
 ity and beneficial to the promoter. Acting on this belief, first by 
 himself and afterwards in conjunction with others, he acquired 
 such land on the line of the proposed route as could be obtained, 
 and then agreed to build the boulevard himself, contributing one- 
 third of the cost, if the town of Brookline would pay the other two- 
 thirds. This offer was accepted , and the construction of the boule- 
 vard, one of the most attractive thoroughfares in America, was en- 
 tered upon. But before it was completed Mr. Whitney discovered 
 that the street railway companies of Boston would not permit 
 the cars of his projected new line to carry their passengers into 
 the centre of the city, thus threatening to seriously diminish the 
 utility of his proposed plan. A man of less determination of 
 
35 
 
 character and originality of mind would" have been thwarted by 
 this stubborn resistance of strong vested interests. But with 
 him opposition was only an incentive to greater exertion and 
 more comprehensive action. His method of releasing himself 
 from a seemingly inextricable entanglement was startling in its 
 boldness. It was to use the little West End Street Railway 
 Company that he had organized as a medium for absorbing and 
 uniting into one harmonious corporation all of the different and 
 often conflicting street railway companies of Boston. The ob- 
 stacles in the way were innumerable. City and State Govern- 
 ments, railroad commissioners, obstinate and jealous railroad 
 officials and unwilling stockholders, all had to be considered and 
 treated with. But the courage which planned was backed by 
 the tact, good judgment, persuasiveness and energy needed to 
 carry the project through to a successful conclusion. To secure 
 the needed financial results, he had foreseen and counted upon 
 the general introduction of electricity as a motive power, and 
 hence when made president of the enlarged West End Company 
 he almost immediately began the application and utilization of 
 this new form of motive power. The West End Company was 
 the first of the street railway companies to adopt the electric 
 system on an extensive scale. It was the pioneer and all the 
 other street railways of the continent have followed its example. 
 The outcome has been the building up of a system of rapid 
 street transportation in and around Boston, which in range and 
 character of service is without a rival in the world. 
 
 The next large business operation into which Mr. Whitney 
 entered was the formation of the Dominion Coal Company. 
 Having had his attention called to the existence in the Sydney 
 district, Cape Breton Island, of a number of independent coal 
 mines operated in the expensive, old-fashioned manner of coal 
 mining, he convinced himself, after investigation, that it would 
 be possible by uniting these small companies into one large cor- 
 poration, to profitably introduce improved labour-saving mining 
 machinery, and in this way not only materially reduce the cost 
 of mining, but greatly increase the output of the mines. 
 
 By equipping the mines with the most modern machinery, 
 connecting them by railway with great shipping piers, which he 
 had constructed at Sydney and Louisburg, reorganizing the 
 transportation service between Sydney and Montreal, and pro- 
 viding facilities for rapidly unloading the coal at this port, the 
 cost of mining and marketing the coal was greatly reduced. The 
 Canadian demand for coal was steadily increasing, but the coal 
 areas owned by the Dominion Coal Company being extensive 
 and the seams very thick, Mr. Whitney realized that the industry 
 was capable of immense expansion if an adequate market could 
 be secured. He had from the first had in mind the possibility 
 of securing a large market for Cape Breton coal in New Eng- 
 land, but he met with unexpected difficulties. He was dis- 
 
36 
 
 appointed in his hope of securing the abolition of the American 
 customs duty on coal, and moreover, he found that Cape Breton 
 coal was not so popular in New England as some of the American 
 coals with which it had to compete, Ijecause it was more smoky. 
 It is a characteristic of Mr. Whitney that he often makes what 
 at first seems an insurmountable difficulty a stepping stone to 
 great success, and here again his business genius asserted itself. 
 Failure or half -success is a conclusion which he will never accept 
 as final. Ati outlet to the West End problem had been dis- 
 covered tIiroit<i^h a practical, but imaginative, foresight of the 
 revolution in transportation which was to be brought about by 
 the utilization of electricity. The Dominion coal problem found 
 an equally brilliant solution by a mental forecast which con- 
 vinced him that a large part of the use of bituminous coal in the 
 future was to be found in the separation and independent em- 
 ployment of its constituent parts. He knew that the smokiness 
 of bituminous coal was due to the fact that its volatile constituents 
 passed ofT in burning. He knew that these constituents, the gas, 
 ammonia and tar, were valuable for many purpo.ses, and he 
 reasoned that if instead of being allowed to go to waste they 
 were taken from the coal before it was sold they might be profit- 
 ably utilized, while a more satisfactory fuel could be offered to 
 the public. 
 
 With Mr. Whitney investigation quickly succeeds concep- 
 tion, and positive action follows hard upon satisfactory investi- 
 gation. His first step was to organize the Massachusetts Pipe 
 lyine Gas Company, by means of which the gas obtained by 
 treating the slack or culm of the Dominion Coal Company could 
 be sold to the various Boston Gas Companies at a price which 
 would comp^l its purchase. Following this came the tests of 
 the coke, made by some of the leading railway companies, as a 
 means of demonstrating its utility and advantage for locomotive 
 steaming purposes. The results of these tests were all that 
 could be desired, and the railway companies were so pleased with 
 the result that they offered to pay a higher price for it than for 
 coal, as it gave them a clean fuel, free from smoke and cinders, 
 possessing all the advantages and none of the disadvantages of 
 coal for steam purposes. 
 
 Next came the organization of the New England Gas and 
 Coke Company for the purpose of building coke ovens on a large 
 scale on the water front near Boston, in which the culm could be 
 treated so as to release and separate its constituent parts, the 
 company at the same time acquiring control of the Massachusetts 
 Pipe lyine, of certain of the gas companies in and around Boston, 
 and a contingent interest in other gas plants. This organi- 
 zation has now nearly completed its works, and in a short time 
 will use many hundreds of thousands of tons a year of coal of the 
 Dominion Coal Company in supplying Boston and its vicinity with 
 low-priced gas, and in furnishing the railroads which have their 
 
37 
 
 terminals there and neighbouring manufacturing establishments 
 with the coke they need for fuel. A number of the by-product 
 coke ovens are already in operation and the coke has become very 
 popular as a domestic fuel, as well as for use on the railways and 
 in industrial establishments, while there is no difficulty in di.i- 
 posing of the tar and sulphate of ammonia at prices which more 
 than pay the cost of manufacturing both coke and by-products 
 and the customs duty on the slack coal that is used. 
 
 The idea of establishing iron and steel works on a large 
 scale at Sydney, near the mines, at tidewater, and within easy 
 reach of the immense iron ore deposits of Newfoundland, as a 
 means of creating an extra demand for the output of the coal 
 mines, ^'nd providing employment for a large number of people, 
 had often pressnted itself to Mr. Whitney's mind. The success 
 which attended the use of Cnpe Breton coke with the ore of Great 
 Bell Island in the blast furnace at Ferrona and the announce- 
 ment that the two political parties had come to an agreement in 
 favour of continuing the protective duties and bounties, con- 
 vinced him that the time had come for action. As in previous 
 enterprises the subject had l)een studied with the aid of scientific 
 experts, whose investigations confirmed his opinion that iron 
 and steel could be manufactured more advantageously at Sydney 
 than anywhere else in the world. With the data secured in 
 these expert investigations at his command, and the confidence 
 created by the great success he had achieved in all previous 
 undertakings, Mr. Whitney found no difficulty in enlisting the 
 co-operation of some of the leading capitalists of Canada and the 
 United States in the formation of the Dominion Iron and Steel 
 Company. 
 
 In these vast undertakings, each of them involving the ex- 
 penditure of many millions of dollars, while Mr. Whitney has 
 had the advice and financial assistance of others, in all cases his 
 has been the brain to conceive and his the hand to execute. But 
 for his masterful and suggestive mind, and his ability to impart 
 to others something of his own enthusiasm and confidence, none 
 of these great works would have been accomplished. It has not 
 been with him merely the formation of great companies by the 
 grouping together of existing corporations, for in almost every 
 work to which he has turned his hand his method has been a 
 distinctly creative one— that is, the formation, by the employ- 
 ment of scientific invention and discovery, of new industries, 
 which in their development would not only bring in adequate 
 financial returns to their promoters, but would also prove of 
 lasting benefit to a vast number of human beings. 
 
 Much of the information about Mr. Whitney in this sketch 
 was obtained by a Star man from the editor of one of the leading 
 daily lewspapers of Boston, who was asked to tell what he knew 
 about the man who is taking such a foremost part in the develop- 
 ment of the east-end of Canada. In conclusion, he said : " Mr. 
 Whitney is intellectually and physically in the prime of life. He 
 
38 
 
 is capable, as might be assumed, of great mental endurance, 
 keeping himself in sound physical condition by frequent exer- 
 cise in the saddle, and by interesting himself in other kinds of 
 out-door enjoyment. His manners are simple and unaffected, 
 his democratic sense of human equality making him easily ap- 
 proachable by all ; while his kindness of heart is even too quickly 
 shown when an appeal is made to his generosity. A few years 
 ago a well-known and judicially-minded Bostonian was asked to 
 name the three greatest men in this community. After thinking 
 a few minutes he replied : ' In religion, Phillips Brooks ; in in- 
 tellectual pursuits, President Eliot of Harvard University ; in 
 business life, Henry M. Whitney,' a classification to which most 
 of Mr. Whitney's fellow-townsmen would readily subscribe." 
 
 The wife of one of the officials of the Dominion Coal Com- 
 pany in Cape Breton said to a Star man : ' ' Mr. Whitney is a 
 business genius, and yet he is the most unassuming man I ever 
 met. All his employes love him. His manner is the same to an 
 office boy as to a magnate. ' ' 
 
 There is no doubt that Mr. Whitney is a man of great per- 
 sonal magnetism. 
 
 Most of the Canadian directors of the Dominion Iron and 
 Steel Company have been prominently before the people of Can- 
 ada in connection with various enterprises, and their biographies 
 having already been published in the Star, they will not require 
 such extended notice as the president. 
 
 Tating them geographically for convenience, beginning at the 
 west, the representatives from Toronto on the Board are : Senator 
 Geo. A. Cox and Mr. Elias Rogers. Hon. Mr. Cox is identified with 
 many of the most prominent business interests of Canada. He 
 is president of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, the Canada 
 I,ife Assurance Company, the Crow's Nest Pass Coal Company, 
 the Western Fire and Marine Insurance Company, and the 
 British American Fire and Marine Insurance Co. , and is actively 
 interested in several other important business enterprises, 
 including the Canadian General Electric Company and the 
 National Trust Company of Onf;ario, I^imited, (the transfer agent 
 for the Dominion Iron and Steel Company). 
 
 Mr. Elias Rogers is also a resident of Toronto. He is the 
 leading coal merchant of Ontario, and a director of the Imperial 
 Bank. From his past experience he is familiar not only with 
 coal, but also with the iron trade of Ohio, and Pennsylvania. 
 
 In Montreal reside Sir William C. Van Home, Mr. R. B. 
 Angus the vice-president of the Dominion Iron and Steel 
 Company, and Mr. James Ross. They have been so long 
 connected with important enterprises that the mention of their 
 names calls up not only the history of the Canadian Pacific 
 Railway from its inception to the present time, but many of the 
 most important Canadian industrial successes, as well as McGill 
 University, of which both Sir William Van Home and Mr. 
 Angus are governors, and the three are known throughout Eur- 
 ope and this continent as enlightened patrons of the fine arts. 
 
39 
 
 Sir William C. Van Home, chairman of the Board of Directors 
 of the Canadian Pacific Railway, of which he was president and 
 general manager for many years, has a mind of extraordinary 
 versatility, combined with great powers of concentration. No 
 matter what a man's trade or profession may be. Sir William can 
 talk to him understandiugly about it, and business men are often 
 astonished at his quick insight into technical matters to which 
 they have themselves devoted years of study. He has a reputa- 
 tion as a mind reader among those who know him well, and 
 some remarkable stories are told about his achievements in this 
 direction, but this is due not to any occult influence, but to his 
 quick reasoning powers and his faculty of reading faces and un- 
 derstanding the characters of those with whom he converses, 
 either during business negotiations or in social intercourse. If 
 he were not celebrated as a railway man, he might have a repu- 
 tation as an artist, for he not only knows a good picture when 
 he sees it, but can paint pictures himself that would do credit to 
 artists of standing who have devoted their lives to artistic work. 
 
 He started life as an office boy in an American railway sta- 
 tion, and before he came to Canada at the age of 38 he had 
 distinguished himself as a successful railway man, having been 
 superintendent and general manager of several important railways 
 in the Western States. 
 
 Upon coming to Canada to take the management of the 
 Canadian Pacific Railway he was given the task of carry- 
 ing out the contract made with the Dominion Government to 
 construct a railway across the continent in ten years. He com- 
 pleted the work in four years and a half, less than half the time 
 called for in the contract. But it was as general manager and 
 president after the completion of the main line that Sir William 
 Van Home's wonderful organizing ability and power to master 
 the details of every line of business were most required. The 
 railway ran through an almost uninhabited country and it had 
 been predicted that the traffic would not pay for the grease on 
 the car wheels. It was necessary to create business for the 
 railway. This was accomplished by building and buying sub- 
 sidiary railways, establishing steamship lines, bringing in 
 settlers to the North- West farm lands, encouraging the establish- 
 ment of industrial enterprises along the line and promoting the 
 development of the mining resources of British Columbia and 
 North- Western Ontario. Few Canadians realize how much the 
 Canadian Pacific Railway Company under the direction of Sir 
 William Van Home has done to interest outside capital in the 
 development of Canadian resources. Passengers on the Canadian 
 Pacific Railway, whether rich or poor, always receive due at- 
 tention from the railway officials, but it has been the policy of 
 Sir William Van Home to particularly please the capitalists of 
 other countries, because he knew that Canada's wonderful 
 natural resources could never be developed without capital from 
 outside. Sir William Van Home has spent a great deal of money 
 and a great deal of time trying to impress the capitalists of Great 
 
40 
 
 Britain, the United States and other countries with the resources 
 of Canada. Many a wealthy man has gone across the continent 
 in Sir William's private car, listening on the way to his eulogies 
 of Canada. He is an enthusiastic believer in the great future of 
 Canada ; a talk with him about this country is sufficient to make 
 even a pessimist hopeful, and there is no doubt whatever that 
 the mining development, which has contributed so much to the 
 prosperity of Canada during the last three years, is largely due 
 to his efforts to interest outside capitalists in Canadian resources. 
 The educat 11?; work done by the Canadian Pacific Railway Com- 
 pany hrio made it far easier for promoters to get capital for Can- 
 adian enterprises in both Great Britain and the United States. 
 His new position as chairman of the Board of Directors of the 
 Canadian Pacific Railway Company allows him more leisure than 
 he had while president of the company, and he will take an 
 active part in furthering the interests of the Dominion Iron and 
 Steel Company. 
 
 Mr. R. B. Angus is a Scotchman by birth, but came to 
 Canada in 1857, at the age of 27, to take a position on the staff 
 of the Bank of Montreal, in whose service he remained for 
 twenty- two years, becoming general manager in 1869, and 
 holding that position until 1879, when he retired in order to 
 take the general managership of the St. Paul, Minneapolis and 
 Manitoba Railway. In 1880 he joined the Canadian Pacific 
 Railway syndicate, which included Mr. George Stephen [now 
 Lord Mount Stephen] and Mr. Donald Smith [now Lord 
 Strathcona] and others, and he has ever since been closely 
 identified with the great railway. He is now a director of the 
 Bank of Montreal, of which he was formerly general manager, 
 and is interested in a number of other successful business 
 enterprises. 
 
 Mr. James Ross is also a Scotchman by birth, and was 
 educated as a civil engineer, but emigrated to the United States 
 in 1870, at the age of 22 years, and remained there for some 
 years, acting at first as resident engineer and then as chief 
 engineer on several railways. In 1878 he came to Canada, and 
 built the Credit Valley Railway, of which he afterwards became 
 general manager. He was consulting engineer of the Ontario 
 and Quebec Railway, which later on became a part of the 
 Canadian Pacific Railway system, and he had the contract for 
 the construction of some of the most difficult sections of the 
 Canadian Pacific Railway, including the Rocky Mountain section. 
 He has since built several other Canadian railways. In recent 
 years he has been closely identified with a number of electric 
 railway enterprises, having taken a leading part in re-organizing 
 the Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and St. John street railways 
 and substituting electricity for horses. In 1896 he and Mr. 
 Mackenzie acquired the street railway systems of the city of 
 Birmingham, Eng., and introduced the electric system there, 
 and he was one of the syndicate of Canadian capitalists who 
 built electric tramways in Jamaica. He is vice-president of the 
 
41 
 
 Montreal and Toronto Street Railway Companies, president of 
 the Winnipeg and St. John Street Railway Companies, and 
 president of the Dominion Bridge Company, while he is actively 
 interested in a number of other important enterprises. 
 
 Mr. Robert McKay, another Montreal director, is well 
 known as having succeeded his uncles in their long established 
 and most successful importing business, which he still carries on. 
 He is chairman of the Board of Harbour Commissioners of 
 Montreal, president of the Bell Telephone Company of Canada, 
 and a director of the Merchants Bank of Canada ; and, like his 
 Canadian colleagues on the board of this company, his name is 
 familiar to all the readers of the Star. 
 
 Mr. John S. McLennan is a native of Montreal, a son of 
 Mr. Hugh McL,ennan, well known in Canada as a man of very 
 high character, a prosperous merchant, and the trusted director 
 in many financial and business institutions, and a brother of Mr. 
 William McLennan, the well-known Canadian author, whose nov- 
 els, short stories and poems, published first in Harper's Magazine 
 and afterwards in book form, have been highly praised by critics 
 in both England and the United States. Mr. John S. McLennan 
 is a graduate of McGill University and also of Cambridge, Eng. 
 He has been identified with the mining interests of Cape Breton 
 for about fifteen years. Previous to the year 1 893 he was the 
 resident manager of the International Coal Company, displaying 
 signal ability in this position. On the absorption of this mine 
 into the organization of the Dominion Coal Company, he became 
 treasurer of the larger organization, and still retains his position. 
 No small share of the success of the coal company is due to him, 
 the details of the business in recent years having fallen under his 
 immediate supervison. 
 
 Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia, has naturally taken a 
 keen interest in the development of this company, and has been 
 closely identified with its inception. Four of the directors are 
 residents of Halifax. 
 
 The Hon. David McKeen, who has lately become a resident 
 of Halifax, commenced his career in Cape Breton before the days 
 of the Reciprocity Treaty. Employed at first by the Caledonia 
 Coal Company, until he ultimately became its principal owner, 
 he saw all phases of its development, during the time of the 
 Reciprocity Treaty, through the dark days of the Nova Scotian 
 collieries, and gradually increasing prosperity with the development 
 of the inter-provincial trade in coal which began in 1878. The 
 prosperity of the Caledonia mine during the years immediately 
 preceding its absorption in the Dominion Coal Co. in 1893, was 
 in a large measure due to him, and as resident manager for tlie 
 new company, he had charge of its interests in Cape Breton 
 during the trying period of construction. From this position he 
 retired with ample means, remaining on the board of the Dominion 
 Coal Company, as well as becoming a director of the Dominion 
 Iron and Steel Company He is also president of the Halifax 
 
42 
 
 Electric Tramway Company, and a director of the Merchants 
 Bank of Halifax. 
 
 Another director of the same bank, who is a member of the 
 board of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company, is Mr. Michael 
 Dwyer. He is a native of Newfoundland, but for many years 
 has been a successful and prominent merchant in Halifax. 
 
 Mr. W. B. Ross, Q.C. , secretary of the company, is a 
 leading member of the Bar of Nova Scotia. He is also a director 
 of the Dominion Coal Company. 
 
 Mr. B. F. Pearson has done much to make the name of 
 ' ' promoters ' ' respected in Nova Scotia. It was he who first 
 interested Mr. Whitney in the Cape Breton coal mines and 
 brought about the organization of the Dominion Coal Company. 
 He also organized the Halifax Electric Tramway Company and 
 has been closely idsntified with the formation of the West India 
 Tramway Co. , and large enterprises in process of formation in 
 Havana and Brazil. 
 
 The directors who reside in the United States are Mr. H. F. 
 Dimock and Mr. Almeric Paget, of New York. Mr. H. F. 
 Dimock is a brother-in-law of Mr. Whitney, and has been closely 
 associated with him in most of the important enterprises in which 
 he has been engaged. He is the manager of the Metropolitan 
 Steamship Co. , and a director of the Dominion Coal Co. , and 
 occupies in the business and social world of New York a most 
 enviable position. He, too, like Mr. Angus, is identified with 
 educational institutions, and is a governor of Yale University. 
 
 Mr. Almeric H. Paget is a young Englishman, the son of 
 Major-General Paget. After a successful business career in 
 Minnesota, he became a resident of New York. He is a son-in-law 
 of Mr. William C. Whitney, and by marriage a nephew of 
 Colonel O. H. Payne, of the Standard Oil Company. He is 
 president of the Chihuahua and' Pacific Railway Company and 
 takes an active part in the management of other corporations. 
 
 Mr. Julian Kennedy, the consulting engineer, is a man of 
 about 45 years, and a graduate of the Yale Scientific School. 
 His name still remains prominent in athletic circles, on account 
 of his extraordinary success as an oarsman during his college 
 career. But few amateurs have ever won so large a proportion 
 of the races in which they started as he, and the vigour and 
 determination to which these successes were due have helped 
 him in the twenty odd years of active life since that time. There 
 is scarcely in the United States an iron or steel works of the first 
 importance, which, in one form or another, does not bear the 
 marks, in some department, of his ability. Many of his 
 inventions made some years ago still remain in the most important 
 steel works of the United States, in spite of the extraordinary 
 transformation of the appliances used in this great industry. 
 Mr. Kennedy has been called on in consultation in the United 
 States, England, Russia and China. 
 
 Mr. R. G. Wells, Mr. Kennedy's representative in Cape 
 
43 
 
 Breton, is a young man who has just returned from Russia, 
 where he had charge of the construction of large iron works. 
 Previous to this time he was associated with Mr. Kennedy, and 
 has been in the employment of the Illinois Steel Company. 
 
 The contractors for the greater part of this work are the 
 Riter-Conley Manufacturing Company of Pittsburg. They have 
 been pioneers of American industry. Much of the work 
 manufactured in their shop at Pittsburg has been taken to 
 Britain, Holland and other European countries, and to some of 
 the Australian colonies. 
 
 Mr. Riter brings to this firm a very long experience as a 
 successful contractor ; a reputation of great energy, judgment 
 and resource. 
 
 Associated with him he has a large number of able and 
 trained assistants, prominent among whom is Mr. W. A. Coffin, 
 the vice-president of the Riter-Conley Company, who will give 
 close personal attention to the erection of the plant at Sydney. 
 
 The capital stock of the company is $15,000,000 and 
 $6,000,000 of five per cent bonds will be issued. The capital is 
 much more than sufficient to cover the cost of the works now 
 being constructed extensive as they are, but it is believed that 
 the situation of Sydney is so favourable for reaching the markets 
 of the world that it will be necessary to increase the number of 
 furnaces very soon after those now in course of construction are 
 completed, and it is possible that the building of ships may be 
 undertaken by the company. 
 
 It is said to be the first time in industrial enterprises of 
 this kind when a large steel plant has been built concurrently 
 with so large a blast furnace plant. Indeed it is usually the 
 custom to build a blast furnace plant and add the steel plant 
 later on. The advantages of the combination are always 
 recognized, but it has been difficult or impossible to secure the 
 necessary capital for doing the whole at once. That the large 
 capital required for this Canadian enterprise has been obtained 
 so quietly, apparently so easilj', is abundant evidence of the faith 
 in its financial success by the men who are prominent in it as 
 directors and stockholders. 
 
 The capacity of the blast furnaces aggregate from 1000 
 to 1400 tons a day, or 400,000 tons to 500,000 tons per year. 
 The fixed charges being interest on $6,000,000 of bonds at 5 
 per cent amount to $300,000 per year or about 75c per ton of pig 
 iron output. This is believed to be the smallest fixed charge of 
 any large plant in the United States or probably elsewhere. 
 
How Iron and Steel are Made. 
 
 From the Montreal Daily Star, October ai, rSgg, 
 
 VI. 
 
 ►HE common conception of iron among those un- 
 acquainted with chemistry is that it is a black 
 substance, easily fusible and readily moulded 
 while liquid into any shape desired. In fact, 
 pure iron is white and very difficult to fuse. What we common- 
 ly call iron — the iron which is used as a raw material in so many 
 lines of industry, is a mixture of pure iron with other substances. 
 If iron were easily obtainable in a pure state it would be a very 
 simple matter to mix with it the substances required to fit it for 
 use in the mechanic arts, but pure iron is very rare. In nature 
 it is almost invariably found combined with oxygen and various 
 impurities in such a way that it is even more unfit for industrial 
 purposes than it would be in a pure state. The mineral com- 
 pounds of iron are called iron ores, and the whole purpose of 
 the complicated processes of the iron and steel works is to take 
 away from the iron the impurities of the ore and add to it the 
 substances which adapt it for the various industrial uses. Ac- 
 cording to a high American authority on iron-making, "iron 
 ores are considered rich when they contain above 50 per cent, 
 of iron : average when they contain between 50 and 35 per cent. ; 
 poor when between 35 and 25 per cent., and useless when below 
 25 per cent. The iron ore of Great Bell Island, which will be 
 used by the Dominion Iron and Steel Company, contains from 54 
 to 59 per cent, of metallic iron, the average being fully 55 per 
 cent. The iron ores of the great Cleveland iron district of Eng- 
 land do not contain over 42 per cent, of iron, and the Alabama 
 ores are said to average about 40 per cent, or a little over. The 
 common impurities of iron ore are alumina, magnesia, lime, 
 phosphorus, silica and sulphur. A certain percentage of some 
 of these foreign substances may be of advantage in making iron 
 and steel, promoting fusibility, or serving some other purpose in 
 the process. Sometimes a substance, which is advantageous at 
 one stage of the process must be eliminated at a later stage. It 
 has been found that most of the common impurities of iron ore 
 combine very readily with lime when melted and form what is 
 called a slag, which is lighter than iron, floats on top and can 
 be easily tapped off. The lime thus used is called a flux. The 
 laboratory in which takes place the first process of extracting 
 
45 
 
 the impurities of the iron ore and adding carbon is called a blast 
 furnace, because the ore and other materials placed in it are 
 fused by blasts of hot air that are blown into it. It is a high 
 structure, the inner walls of which are built of fire bricks, the 
 outer walls being of ordinary brick or stone work bound with 
 iron. The raw materials which are called the " stock," are iron 
 ore, coke and limestone. They are fed into the furnace at the 
 
 top, the quantity of each requir- 
 ^eff ed to make a ton of pig-iron de- 
 " pending upon the character of 
 the ore and fuel. Experience 
 at Ferrona has shown that it 
 takes 1.8 tons of Great Bell 
 Island iron ore, 1.25 tons of 
 Cape Breton coke and .75 of a 
 ton of Cape Breton limestone, 
 to make one ton of pig-iron. 
 
 A very good description of a 
 blast furnace has been given 
 by an American writer, Mr. R. 
 R. Bowker, who says : ' ' The 
 internal shape of the blast fur- 
 nace follows the general type of 
 two truncated cones, united at 
 the widest parts, the maximum 
 diameter being about one-third 
 the way up. The angle of 
 juncture is rounded off so that 
 the whole is in form not unlike 
 an inverted soda water bottle 
 with most of the neck and 
 conical bottom cut off. The 
 topmost section is known as the 
 throat — very properly, for it 
 swallows the charge. That por- 
 tion extending downward from 
 the throat to the largest dia- 
 meter is called the stack. The 
 lower portion, of narrowing 
 diameter, is known as the 
 boshes. The lowest section, 
 cylindrical in shape, is the 
 In the brick walls of this portion are 
 
 Tuytrts 
 
 Hearth 
 Tcfffin^-hoh 
 
 BI.AST FURNACE. 
 
 hearth or crucible. „..^.. . ^ 
 
 built hollow cones of metal, from two to ten in number, called 
 tuyeres, which receive the nozzles of the air-pipes. In that part 
 of the hearth below the tuyeres the molten metal accumulates 
 with its accompanying floating mass of slag or cinder, before it 
 is tapped off. Around it is a strong cast or wrought iron 
 crucible jacket, kept cool by a watei spray. Towards the front 
 is the dam-plate, at the bottom of which a channel known as the 
 tapping hole taps the metal from the crucible. Over a notch in 
 
46 
 
 the upper surface of the crucible jacket flows the dischargee of 
 slag. Flues and openings in the body of the masonry are pro- 
 vided for the free escane of gases and steam. The charging 
 platform, on the top of the furnace, is supported on hollow cast- 
 iron columns, which also serve to carry the combustible gases. 
 These, which would otherwise escape, can be made economically 
 valuable as fuel for heating the blast of the blowing machines 
 and for the calcination of the materials of the charge, when this 
 operation is effected outside of the blast furnace. There are 
 several devices for preventing the waste of gases at the throat, 
 and diverting them into the conducting pipes, the best being 
 known as the cup and cone, or hopper and bell, the cone or bell 
 being raised or lowered at will. While the above description fol- 
 lows the general type, the dimensions and constructions of blast 
 furnaces vary greatly, ranging from 50 to 90 feet in height, from 
 6 to 25 feet in maximum diameter, and from 500 to 40,000 cubic 
 feet in capacity. These differences are determined by the quality 
 of the ore most available for use in the district. The blast fur- 
 nace swallows and digests iron ore in a manner closely parallel 
 to the work done by the human organs. The food is prepared 
 before it passes down the throat ; it is fully digested by the pro- 
 cess of intense heat, waste matter is separated, and functions of 
 excretion go on in a similar fashion ; and the great fire-tower 
 breathes through the tuyeres analagous to the human lungs using 
 the oxygen and expelling carbonic acid gas. ' ' 
 
 Mr. Harry Huse Campbell in his interesting work on ' ' The 
 Manufacture and Properties of Structural Steel " has also given 
 a description of the process which goes on in a blast-furnace. 
 He says : " The blast-furnace is kept full of stock, and the com- 
 bustion of the coke is constantly maintained by the introduction 
 of hot blasts through the tuyeres at the hearth. Immediately in 
 front of these tuyeres the temperature is very high, but the con- 
 stant tapping of the liquid products and the constant supply of 
 fresh stock from above prevents this high temperature from 
 spreading upwards, as it would do if nothing were withdrawn 
 from the bottom of the column. The region which is at a suf- 
 ficiently high temperature to liquify the stock is known as the 
 ' zone of fusion. ' It reaches several feet above the tuyeres, the 
 exact extent varj'ing with several conditions of furnace practice. 
 When the oxygen of the blast comes in contact with the coke it 
 forms either carbonic acid or carbonic oxide, but if carbonic acid 
 does form it is instantly reduced to carbonic oxide by the next 
 atom of carbon, so that when the gases leave the zone of fusion 
 and travel upward through the stock to the top of the furnace 
 they may be regarded as a mixture of carbonic oxide and the 
 nitrogen of the blast. The carbonic oxide absorbs the oxygen 
 from the ore, forming carbonic acid, and leaves the iron in the 
 finely divided metallic state known as spongy iron. On reach- 
 ing the lower and hotter parts of the furnace near the zone of 
 fusion, the spongy iron absorbs carbon from the coke, and is 
 
47 
 
 thus converted into 'pig-iron,' which may be regarded as car- 
 bide of iron, the percentage of carbon usually running from three 
 to four per cent. The iron also absorbs some silicon, phosphorus 
 and sulphur from the earthy ingredients of the charge. These 
 probably exist in the pig-iron as silicide, phosphide and sulphide 
 of iron. In addition to the coke which is charged with the ore, 
 a certain proportion of limestone is added. The carbonic acid of 
 this stone is expelled in the upper part of the furnace, and caus- 
 tic lime remains. In rare cases the stone has been subjected to 
 a preliminary calcining, but the economy of this practice is not 
 yet demonstrated. The amount of limestone is regulated so that 
 it will satisfy the silica contained in the ore and in the ash of the 
 coke, and give a slag which is sufficiently acid to be liquid and 
 run freely from the furnace, and which is also sufficiently basic 
 to absorb the sulphur from the coke and ore. At the top of the 
 furnace there is an enormous volume of escaping gas derived 
 from the passage of the blast through the column of burning 
 coke and ore. This is composed of nitrogen, together with 
 some carbonic acid and a larger proportion of carbonic oxide, the 
 percentage of the latter being sufficient to make the mixture 
 available as fuel. Part of this gas is burned under boilers to 
 furnish steam for the blowing engines, while the remainder is 
 used for the reheating of the blast. Formerly the air was heated 
 by forcing it through iron pipes which were surrounded by burn- 
 ing gases, but of late years it is the almost universal practice to 
 have a set of brick stoves, filled with long, narrow passages. By 
 passing burning gas through a stove for an hour or more, the 
 bricks are heated to a high temperature, whereupon the air is 
 blown through in an opposite direction and is heated to nearly 
 the same point. The stoves are used alternately, so that by 
 means of suitable valves, the action is practically continuous. In 
 well-equipped furnaces the temperature of the blast is maintained 
 between i,ooo degrees F. and 1,200 degrees F., these figures 
 being exceeded under favourable conditions. ' ' 
 
 It should be explained that when the chemical process in the 
 blast furnace is completed the slag which floats on top is first 
 tapped off and then the melted metal is tapped either into ladles 
 or into moulds in sand. According to the old fashioned method 
 which is still generally in vogue long troughs are made in the 
 sand and from each of these troughs extend branches. The 
 main troughs are called sows, while the branches are called pigs. 
 The hot metal, flowing out of the furnace, runs along the main 
 trough until it reaches the first branch which it fills, and then 
 goes on to the next, and so on until pigs and sows are filled with 
 metal which cools in the sand. The iron thus produced is called 
 cast iron or pig iron. Some of the sand always sticks to the 
 metal. Formerly the pigs had to be broken off by hand from the 
 sow, but this is now done by machinery. However, this old- 
 fashioned method while still generally used in England and 
 largely in the United States is rapidly being superseded in the 
 
48 
 
 United States by a system known as the Uehling metal convey- 
 ingf and casting arrangement. By this method, as described by 
 Mr. H. M. Howe, the cast iron is tapped from the blast furnace 
 directly into a large ladle, which is carried by rail to a central 
 casting machine, placed so as to be used for all the furnaces of 
 the establishment. The casting arrangement consists essentially 
 of a "Jacob's ladder," or common bucket elevator, of which the 
 buckets and their supporting belt are replaced by a series of 
 horizontal trough- shaped, open, cast-iron moulds, their ends sup- 
 ported and carried by the two parallel endless chains which form 
 the skeleton of the elevator. This, in rising very gradually car- 
 ries these moulds successively under and past the lip of the 
 ladle which contains the molten cast iron from the blast furnace. 
 The ladle tips progressively, and fills the passing moulds one 
 after another. They pass on slowly up the elevator, so slowly 
 that by the time any one of them has reached the top of the 
 elevator the pig which it contains has solidified. When the 
 mould passes the sheave at the top, the pig is dumped out upon 
 another conveyor, which is horizontal and partly submerged in 
 water. Here the pig cools off more quickly and is carried for- 
 ward by this conveyor, and by it in turn dumped into a railroad 
 car. On its return passage the elevator which carries the moulds 
 is sprayed with water, and, if desired, with limewash. So, too, 
 on its upward travel, while carrying the hot pigs, it may be 
 sprayed to hasten their cooling. This method has the advantage 
 over that of casting the pigs attached to a sow and then breaking 
 them up, that it saves a large expenditure of power, and the ad- 
 vocates of it argue that as the iron is to be used in small pieces it 
 should be cast in small pieces. We understand that the Sydney 
 works of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company will be equipped 
 with both a sand house and the more modem apparatus for tapping 
 the metal into ladles, so that either method can be used as 
 desired. 
 
 Pig or cast iron is easily melted and as it can be readily 
 cast in moulds it is very useful for foundry purposes, but being 
 hard, rigid and brittle, it must go through other processes to 
 make it malleable, and upon reaching the latter condition it is 
 called wrought iron. 
 
 The most important difference between pig or cast iron and 
 wrought iron is in the quantity of carbon they contain, the per- 
 centage of carbon in pig-iron running from 2 1-2 to 4 per cent., 
 while wrought iron generally contains less than 20-100 of i per 
 cent. ; and steel usually from 10-100 of i per cent, to 2 1-2 per 
 cent. In ordering wrought iron and steel from the manufac- 
 turer it is customary to specify about what percentage of carbon 
 is desired, i-ioo of i per cent, being accepted as the unit and 
 called one carbon. Steel with a very small percentage of carbon 
 is soft, while steel with a large percentage of carbon is hard. 
 Before the discovery of the Bessemer and open-hearth methods 
 
49 
 
 of steel-making the dividing line between wrought iron and steel 
 was very sharply drawn according to the quantity of carbon they 
 contained. If iron would harden in water it was called steel. 
 But some varieties of steel made by the new processes are .so soft 
 as to closely resemble wrought iron and the distinction between 
 them and wrought iron is more a matter of molecular structure 
 due to the different processes of manufacture than of difference 
 in the quantity of carbon they contain. 
 
 Pig-iron is converted into wrought iron by a series of pro- 
 cesses, the first of which is called puddling, an operation which 
 is conducted in a reverberatory furnace with a fettling of iron 
 ore. The pig-iron is melted and the fettling is stirred into it. 
 The silicon, manganese, sulphur and phosphorus in the pig-iron 
 unite with the oxygen and iron oxide of the iron ore to form a 
 slag, while the carbon escapes in the form of carbonic acid and 
 carbonic oxide. But the particles of iron separated from the 
 impurities are not easily fusible and the heat of the reverberatory 
 furnace, although great enough to melt the pig-iron and iron ore, 
 not being sufficient to keep the mass liquid, it soon becomes 
 pasty in which state it is worked into tails. The puddled ball 
 as it comes from the furnace is a mass of globules of nearly pure 
 iron separated from each other by particles of .slag. It is .squeezed, 
 hammered and rolled until it becomes wrought iron. The squeez- 
 ing process removes a great part of the slag and more is ex- 
 pelled in the procesvses of hammering and rolling, but even the 
 finished bar of iron is permeated by minute particles of cinder. 
 
 Mr. R. R. Bowker gives a very clear description of the 
 difference between a bar of wrought iron and steel which reads 
 as follows : ' ' The wrought iron bar resembles a bunch of iron 
 fibres or sinews with minute particles of slag interspersed here 
 and there. Such iron varies in resistance according to whether 
 the power is applied with or against the fibre. Steel is the result 
 of a fusing process. It may be crucible, Bessemer or open- 
 hearth steel, but in all cases it has been cast from a thoroughly 
 melted and fluid state into an ingot mould, where it .solidifies and 
 is ready for subsequent treatment, such as hammering or rolling. 
 The slag being lighter than the steel, it rises on top of the melted 
 bath and does not mingle with the metal, which remains clear 
 and unobstructed, and after being cast in the mould cools into 
 a crystalline homogeneous mass in which no amount of rolling 
 can develop a fibre. Thus steel possesses a structure more 
 regular and compact than wrought iron. Its resistance to strains 
 and stres.ses is more equal in all directions, and its adaptability 
 to structural use is vastly increased." 
 
 During recent years steel has been gradually superseding 
 wrought iron for a great variety of purpo.ses. 
 
 Now as to the three methods of making steel. Crucible 
 steel is commonly made by placing small pieces of wrought iron 
 together with some black oxide of manganese in melting pots 
 
so 
 
 called cnidbles made of materials containing a good deal of 
 carbon, charcoal being placed in the pot if the quantity of carbon 
 in the material of the crucible is not sufficient. The crucibles 
 are heated in furnaces and are removed with tongs when the 
 metal is melted, and the iron poured into moulds. Sometimes 
 the wrought iron is subjected to a process of cementation by 
 heating it in fine charcoal before using it in the crucible. The 
 process of making crucible steel is an expen.sivc one and it is only 
 used for making steel for razors and other purposes for which a 
 very high quality of steel is required. 
 
 But there are two modem methods of making steel by which 
 it can be produced cheaply. One is called the Bessemer process 
 after the name of the inventor and the other is known as the 
 open-hearth system. The Bessemer process consists in blowing 
 air into liquid pig-iron for the purpose of burning out the im- 
 purities in such a manner that the product is entirely fluid. The 
 operation is performed in a converter and the air is blown up- 
 ward through the metal. By the open-hearth process pig-iron, 
 or a mixture of pig-iron with scrap iron and scrap steel, is 
 exposed to the direct action of the flame in a regenerative gas 
 furnace, the operation being so conducted that the final product 
 is entirely fluid. 
 
 In both the Bessemer and open-hearth systems the extent to 
 which the two great enemies of steel, phosphorus and sulphur, 
 are eliminated depends upon the character of the lining of the 
 converter or of the furnace. The lining may be acid or basic. 
 An acid lining contains a considerable quantity of silicic acid or 
 silica, the substance chiefly used being fire-clay. A basic lining 
 consists of the alkaline oxides of earthy metals or bases, the sub- 
 stances generally used being dolomite, lime and magnesite. 
 When an acid lining is used comparative!}' little of the sulphur 
 and phosphorus can be eliminated, and consequently in the acid 
 processes only iron which is nearly free from these injurious alloys 
 can be used. In the basic Bessemer process the sulphur and 
 phosphorus are to a great extent eliminated, but the quality of 
 the product is uncertain. In the basic open-hearth process all 
 or almost all the sulphur and phosphorus are eliminated and the 
 character of the product can be calculated upon with certainty. 
 
 Thus the basic open-hearth process of steel-making pos- 
 sesses great advantages over the Bessemer. Even with pig-iron 
 made from inferior ore the steel made in the open-hearth furnace 
 is superior to that produced in the Bessemer converter, which 
 can only use pig-iron made with high-grade ores almost free from 
 phosphorus. The open-hearth process is especially advantageous 
 in making high-carbon steel. By the Bessemer process nearly 
 all the carbon is blown out, producing a soft metal, and in order 
 to secure high-carbon steel more carbon must be mixed in. It 
 is difficult to do this in such a way as to secure homogeneity. 
 But in the open-hearth furnace, according to Mr. H. H. Camp- 
 
l2J ► 
 
 51 
 
 bell, *'it is possible to make regularly a steel of any carbon 
 desired from .05 to 1.50 per cent,, with phosphorus below .04 
 per cent., with manganese below .50 per cent., and sulphur 
 below .04 per cent." The open-hearth process is more pro- 
 longed than the Bessemer ; it can be interrupted at the proper 
 stage to secure the amount of carbon desired and no mixing of 
 the carbon is required. 
 
 Phosphorus causes brittle- 
 ness in steel when cold ; while 
 sulphur causes brittleness 
 when red hot and makes it 
 unweldable, so it is extremely 
 important that both these 
 substances should be got rid 
 of. 
 
 The BeSvSemer converter pre- 
 sents a brilliant sight to the 
 .spectator as the flames belch 
 forth from its mouth. There 
 is nothing brilliant about the 
 open-hearth furnace. It does 
 its work quietly, but the pro- 
 duct is better. 
 
 Open-hearth steel is pre- 
 ferred to Bessemer steel for all 
 structural purposes, for .ship- 
 building and armour-plates. 
 For rails the Bessemer steel is 
 used almost entirely in the 
 United States, but in Europe 
 open-hearth steel is rapidly 
 superseding Bessemer steel 
 even for rails. The reason 
 why Bessemer steel rails are 
 more generally used is because 
 they are cheaper, not because 
 they are better than open- 
 hearth steel rails. 
 
 In the Northern States the 
 process generally adopted is 
 the acid Bessemer, but the 
 open-hearth method is gaining 
 ground. In the South the open-hearth method is used 
 almost exclusively. The following table, giving the quantity of 
 steel produced in the United States by the different methods in 
 1894 and 1898, will show how rapidly the production of open- 
 hearth steel is increasing, as compared with other steels : 
 
 TYPE OP BI,AST FURNACE TO 
 BE USED AT SYDNEY. 
 
52 
 
 PRODUCTION OF STEEL IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Kinds. 1894. 1898. 
 
 Tons. Tons. 
 
 Bessemer 3>57i>3i3 6,609,017 
 
 Open-Hearth 784,936 2,230,292 
 
 Crucible 5if7o2 89,747 
 
 Mificellaneous 4i03i 3i8oi 
 
 The readers of the Star will now be able to understand a de- 
 scription of the works that are being constructed in Sydney, 
 C.B., for the Dominion Iron and Steel Company. There are to 
 be four blast furnaces, each having an average capacity of 250 
 tons of pig-iron per day under ordinary conditions, but as stated 
 in a previous article, it is expected in view of the experience at 
 Ferrona, that Great Bell Island ore and Cape Breton coke will 
 work so well together in the furnace that the average output 
 will be larger. The blast furnaces will be of the same general 
 type as those used in the Edgar Thompson Steel Works at 
 Pittsburg, Pa. The height will be eighty-five feet and the 
 diameter nineteen feet. In the steel mill the basic open-hearth 
 system will be exclusively used, but the exact type of furnace 
 has not been definitely decided upon. Hundreds of men are now 
 working at the foundations of the works, but it will be some time 
 before the steel mill is so far completed as to be ready for the 
 furnaces, so that there will be time for consideration, and the 
 best type of furnace with the most modern improvements that 
 have been tested by experience can be chosen. There will be 
 from ten to twelve open-hearth furnaces in the steel mill. The 
 material used in making steel will be practically all pig-iron or 
 hot metal from the blast furnaces of the company, but a small 
 percentage of scrap iron and steel will be used. Generally the 
 metal will be taken to the steel mill in a liquid state, as it comes 
 hot from the furnaces, but the moulded pig-iron can be used 
 when desired either with or without the hot liquid. 
 
 The blast furnaces will cost about $2,500,000, the steel mill 
 about $1,500,000; the coke ovens previously described about 
 $1,250,000, and wharves, discharging plant, foundations, freight, 
 duties and incidentals fully a million more. 
 
Cost of Making Pig Iron at Sydney. 
 
 From the Montreal Daily Star, October 28, i8gg. 
 
 i 
 
 VII. • 
 
 OT only to the capitalists directly interested in 
 the Dominion Iron and Steel Company, but to 
 the whole Canadian people, the commercial 
 success of the company is a matter of great 
 importance. If Canada is to become a great nation the 
 resources of the Maritime Provinces must be developed. So long 
 as our Atlantic seaboard, the portion of the country nearest to 
 the great nations of Europe, remains sparsely settled while there 
 are populous centres of industry all along the Atlantic coast of the 
 United States, Canada will suffer by comparison with its neigh- 
 bour in the eyes of all Europe. The building up of a big manu- 
 facturing city at the front door of Canada will give our Dominion, 
 new importance in the eyes of the world. There are very few 
 countries that export iron and steel, and if Canada can take 
 rank among the iron exporting nations it will add greatly to 
 Canadian prestige. 
 
 If the capitalists who are investing so much money in es- 
 tablishing a great iron industry in Cape Brtton make very large 
 profits it will be known in England and the United States and 
 will create a feeling of confidence in Canadian investments which 
 will make it easier to obtain capital to develop the great natural 
 resources of every part of Canada. The fact that British capital- 
 ists lost so much money in the Grand Trunk Railway and some 
 other Canadian investments years ago greatly retarded the de- 
 velopment of this country by causing an immense amount of capi- 
 tal, which would otherwise have been invested in the Dominion, 
 to go to the United States, the Argentine Republic and other 
 countries. All investments in the United States were not suc- 
 cessful, British capital was lost there just as it was lost in the 
 Grand Trunk Railway, but there were some cases of extraordinary 
 profits that offset the losses and when a stockholder in some un- 
 successful American concern began to talk of his losses there was 
 always a stockholder in some successful concern to tell of the great 
 profits he had made. Canada until recently could show no 
 extraordinary commercial successes to offset a few great failures. 
 
54 
 
 The country was prosperous, the people in general were probably 
 in more comfortable circumstances than those of any other nation, 
 but we had no striking examples of great fortunes being made in 
 Canadian investments to cause people of other countries to talk 
 about the Dominion as a land in which it would pay to invest 
 money. The recent improvement in the financial condition of 
 the Grand Tj'unk Railway, the great success of the Canadian 
 Pacific Railway and the rich returns from some of the mining 
 ventures in the Canadian West have given the investors of the 
 world more confidence in Canada than they ever had before, and 
 if the Dominion Iron and Steel Company should prove to be an 
 extraordinary commercial success it will have a very great in- 
 fluence in attracting capital not only to the Maritime Provinces, 
 but to all sections of Canada. The readers of the Star will 
 therefore be interested in knowing how much it will cost to make 
 iron in Cape Breton, at what price it can be sold and where it 
 will find a market. 
 
 The Dominion Iron and Steel Company, in making estimates 
 as to the cost of manufacturing iron and steel at Sydney have 
 the advantage of knowing what has been accomplished by the 
 Nova Scotia Steel Company in making pig-iron at Ferrona with 
 the iron ore of Great Bell Island and coke from Cape Breton 
 coal, and in making steel at Trenton near New Glasgow from 
 Ferrona pig-iron. The chief differences are that the iron ore, 
 coal and limestone are much closer together at Sydney than at 
 Ferrona and that the Dominion Iron and Steel Company will 
 manufacture iron and steel on a much larger scale than they 
 have ever been made at Ferrona and Trenton. 
 
 The Nova Scotia Steel Company have estimated that the 
 cost of making pig-iron in the neighbourhood of Sydney Har- 
 bour would be less than $5.50 per ton including fixed charges so 
 long as the iron ore of Great Bell Island can be mined open cut, 
 and when underground mining has to be resorted to that the 
 cost of a ton of pig-iron will not exceed $5.83 including fixed 
 charges. Careful estimates made by experts for the Dominion 
 Iron and Steel Company correspond with this estimate very 
 closely, so it may be assumed that the cost of making pig-iron 
 at Sydney with the ore of Great Bell Island will never exceed 
 six dollars per ton under normal conditions. During a period of 
 great prosperity when high prices prevail for everj'thing and 
 wages rise the cost of making iron and steel will no doubt be 
 somewhat greater than at ordinary times, but owing to the fact 
 that the Dominion Iron and Steel Company have iron mines of 
 their own and have a permanent arrangement with the Dominion 
 Coal Company for a supply of cheap coal, the cost of production 
 is not likely to vary as much in good and bad times as at iron 
 works which are obliged to buy their raw materials in a fluc- 
 tuating market. 
 
 It may be noted that in the estimate of the Dominion Iron 
 and Steel Company the price of iron ore is fixed at what the ore 
 
55 
 
 of Great Bell Island will cost when underground mining has to 
 be resorted to. It should also be stated that in estimating the 
 cost of coke, the value of the by-products is deducted as the volatile 
 constituents of the coal, which are usually lost in making coke, 
 will be saved by the Otto- Hoffman by-product coke ovens as 
 explained in a previous article. The estimate of the Nova 
 Scotia Steel Company does not allow anything for the value of 
 by-products. It will be easily understood that the Dominion 
 Coal Company can afford to supply the Dominion Iron and Steel 
 Company with coal at a much lower price than it could be profit- 
 ably sold in small quantities to the general public at a dis- 
 tance from the mines. The constant demand for coal for use in 
 the iron works will enable the company to operate its mines at 
 their full capacity all the year around instead of closing them 
 partially during the period when the St. Lawrence cannot be 
 navigated. It is a well known law of production that the larger 
 the output in any industrial enterprise the cheaper the product 
 can be turned out. The blast furnaces of the Dominion Iron 
 and Steel Company will require about a million tons of coal 
 annually for coke, and the coal company can turn out this extra 
 quantity at a lower cost per ton than it can mine the present out- 
 put. There will be no transportation charges and no middle- 
 men's profits. In mining bituminous coal and handling it after- 
 wards a great deal of it is broken into such small fragments that 
 it is not saleable for ordinary purposes. This fine coal, much of 
 which is simply coal dust, is called slack and it used to be a 
 waste product of the mines, but it makes excellent coke. The 
 coal company will not have sufficient slack to fully supply the 
 iron company and a considerable quantity of larger coal must be 
 used, but the fact that a portion of the coal used will be slack helps 
 to fix the price. 
 
 Following is. the estimate of the Dominion Iron and Steel 
 Company in detail : 
 
 1.8 tonsofore $l 80 
 
 1.25 tons of coke 1.80 
 
 .75 ton of limestone 40 
 
 Labour, repairs and incidentals 1.50 
 
 $5-50 
 
 This estimate is for pig-iron made exclusively from the ore 
 of the Wabana Mine, Great Bell Island, Newfoundland. It is 
 probable that the Dominion Iron and Steel Company will some- 
 times mix small quantities of more expensive ores with the 
 Wabana ore in order to produce different varieties of pig-iron, 
 and this may slightly increase the cost per ton. As stated in a 
 previous article the company owns a valuable mine in Cuba, and 
 the works are favourably located for securing iron ores of any 
 quality desired by water from outside points. 
 
 To convert the pig-iron into steel billets will cost about five 
 dollars per ton, so that steel billets can be produced for about 
 $10.50. 
 
56 
 
 Let us compare these figures with prices at Pittsburg, Pa. , 
 for the last twelve years. According to the report of the 
 American Iron and Steel Association the average annual prices 
 of these articles at Pittsburg for a series of years beginning with 
 1887 was as follows : 
 
 PRICES OF IRON AND STEEL AT PITTSBURG. 
 
 ,^ rr n IJcPsenier Bessemer 
 
 Years. Gray Forge Bessemer j^j,,, Hillets Sleel Rails 
 
 I'lg-Iron. Pig-Irui,. ^^ ^j,,^ ^^ ^j,,^^ 
 
 1887 $1902 $2137 $3255 $3708 
 
 1888 1599 1738 2878 2983 
 
 1889 '5 37 1800 2945 2925 
 
 1890 15 78 18 85 30 32 3' 75 
 
 1891 1406 1595 2532 2992 
 
 1892 , 12 81 1437 2363 3000 
 
 1893 II 77 12 87 20 44 28 12 
 
 1894 9 75 II 38 16 58 24 00 
 
 1895 1094 1272 1848 2433 
 
 1896 10 39 12 14 18 83 18 00 
 
 1897 9 03 10 13 15 08 18 73 
 
 1898 918 1033 1531 1762 
 
 During the last three months according to the Iron Age the 
 price of gray forge pig-iron at Pittsburg has ranged from $17 to 
 $21.50 and the price of Bessemer pig-iron from $20.35 to $24. 
 Bessemer steel billets have ranged in price from $35 to $40, 
 while basic open-hearth steel billets have been sold from $42.50 
 to $45. When prices are normal basic open-hearth steel is 
 usually worth from one dollar to two dollars more than Bessemer 
 steel. The prices of all kinds of iron and steel have been ab- 
 normally high of late, but on the other hand they were abnor- 
 mally low during the period from 1892 to 1898 inclusive. 
 
 Pig-iron is made cheaper in Alabama than anywhere else 
 in the world. In Birmingham, the centre of the Alabama 
 iron district, during a period of extreme depression, the price of 
 No. I Foundry pig-iron has fallen as low as $7, No. 3 Foundry 
 pig-iron $6 and Gray Forge pig-iron $5.75, for a short time ; but 
 Birmingham is 276 miles from Mobile, the nearest seaport, and 
 that seaport is 2,199 niiles farther from Liverpool than Sydney 
 is. The following table shows the highest and lowest prices of 
 three representative grades of pig-iron in Birmingham for each 
 year from 1890 to 1899 inclusive: 
 
 PRICES OF PIG IRON IN BIRMINGHAM, ALA. 
 
 No. I Foundry. No. 3 Foundry. Gray Forge. 
 
 Years, Highest Lowest Highest Lowest Highest Lowest 
 
 1890 $1600 $1200 $1365 $985 $1190 $960 
 
 189I 12 65 12 10 10 75 10 50 10 75 9 30 
 
 1892 12 25 10 00 10 00 8 90 9 50 8 25 
 
 1893 II 30 925 9 35 750 9^5 690 
 
 1894 9 70 775 8 00 6 50 7 00 6 25 
 
 1895 1025 725 975 605 975 590 
 
 1896 9 25 7 75 8 90 6 20 7 15 6 00 
 
 1897 8 00 7 00 6 75 6 00 6 50 5 75 
 
 1898 8 25 7 50 7 90 6 60 6 70 6 15 
 
 1899 1850 825 1650 780 1600 700 
 
57 
 
 Hamilton pig-iron has sold at the furnace this year as high 
 as $23, and in Montreal as high as $25 per ton, L,ast year 
 Hamilton pig-iron went as low as $12 at the furnace and $14 
 in Montreal. The lowest price at which Ferrona pig-iron was 
 ever sold in Montreal was $13.50 and the highest price $24.50. 
 
 In Montreal the average annual prices of ' ' Summerlee ' ' pig- 
 iron, a Scotch brand, somewhat similiar to Ferrona pig-iron, 
 from 1890 to 1899, inclusive, have been as follows : 
 
 PRICES OF «'SUMMERLEE" PIG IRON IN MONTREAL. 
 
 Years. Prices. 
 
 1890 $22 00 
 
 1891 21 50 
 
 1892 19 00 
 
 1893- 18 50 
 
 1 894 20 00 
 
 1895 19 25 
 
 1896 . 19 00 
 
 1 897 - 17 00 
 
 1 898 17 00 
 
 1 899 25 00 
 
 In Glasgow, Scotland, in September, 1899, the price of No. 
 I Summerlee pig-iron was 85s, equivalent to $20.68, while the 
 price of No. 3, the lowest grade of Summerlee pig-iron, was 78s, 
 equivalent to $18.98. Last year No. i Summerlee pig-iron in 
 Glasgow ranged in price from 51s to 57s. In July 1896, No. i 
 Summerlee pig-iron in Glasgow went as low as 49s gd, or $12. 11, 
 and No. 3 Summerlee as low as 47s 6d, or $11.56. At the same 
 time steel billets sold at £4 2s 6d, or $20.08. Steel billets have 
 recently been sold in Glasgow as high as /^6 5s, equivalent to 
 $30.42. The lowest grades of Scotch pig-iron which are collected 
 in the warrant yards and sold under the name of Scotch 
 "Warrants" have reached the price of 75s 7d, or $18.40 this year. 
 In 1888 Scotch "Warrants" at one time sold as low as 37s id, 
 or $9.03. The following table gives the highest, lowest, and 
 average prices of Scotch "Warrants" at Glasgow, from 1887 to 
 1898, inclusive, expressed in dollars and cents. 
 
 PRICES OK SCOTCH •« WARRANTS" AT GLASGOW. 
 
 Years. 
 
 1S87 $11.60 
 
 1888 
 
 1889 , 
 
 1 890 , 
 
 1891 , 
 
 l8.)2 
 
 «893 
 
 1894 
 
 1895 
 
 1 896 • • • • 
 
 1897 
 
 1898 
 
 ighesl 
 
 Lowest 
 
 Average 
 
 11.60 
 
 $ 9-36 
 
 $10.28 
 
 10.58 
 
 903 
 
 9.70 
 
 15.60 
 
 9-93 
 
 11.62 
 
 15.88 
 
 10.54 
 
 12.07 
 
 14.36 
 
 10.25 
 
 11.48 
 
 11.47 
 
 9.60 
 
 10.17 
 
 12.41 
 
 9.76 
 
 10.30 
 
 10.76 
 
 10.10 
 
 10.38 
 
 11-95 
 
 9.98 
 
 10.80 
 
 12.00 
 
 10.90 
 
 11.40 
 
 11.90 
 
 10.52 
 
 11.03 
 
 12.27 
 
 II 00 
 
 11.48 
 
 Allowing $2.50 for the cost of freight from Sydney to 
 British ports, the pig-iron of the Dominion Iron and Steel Com- 
 
58 
 
 pany could be laid down in Great Britain for $S and steel billets 
 for $13 per ton. As no pig-iron has ever been shipped from 
 Sydney, the exact cost of freight to Great Britain cannot be given, 
 but it is likely to be less than $2.50 per ton soon after the 
 Dominion Iron and Steel Company have established a market for 
 their products in Great Britain, and are able to guarantee large 
 shipments regularly. The freight on a ton of pig-iron from Glas- 
 gow to Montreal has ranged from 2s 6d to 6s per ton, while the 
 freight on pig-iron from Montreal to Liverpool ranges from ids 
 to I2S 6d. But the shipments of pig-iron from Montreal to 
 Great Britain have never been large, and there is no doubt that 
 better rates might be obtained if large shipments were regularly 
 made. Moreover, Montreal is 2,773 niiles from Liverpool, while 
 the distance from Sydney is only 2,282 miles. The Dominion 
 Iron and Steel Company will do bu.siness on an immense scale, 
 and will, therefore, be able to make most favourable terms with 
 steamship companies for the transportation of iron and steel to 
 Great Britain and other countries of Europe, South America, 
 Africa and Asia as well as to American and Canadian ports. The 
 freight on Ferrona pig-iron from New Glasgow, N.S., to Mont- 
 real, by water, has ranged from $1.50 to $2 per ton. By rail it 
 is $2.93. During the season of St. Lawrence navigation the 
 freight rate on pig-iron from Sydney to Montreal would be at 
 least as low as from New Glasgow to Montreal, for the number 
 of ships running on the former route is much greater. 
 
 It is evident from the above figures that the Dominion Iron 
 and Steel Company will be able to sell iron and steel at a profit, 
 even when prices are at the lowest ebb during periods of world- 
 wide depression. It is certain that there will be in the future, 
 as there have been in the past, cycles of good and bad times, and 
 in estimating the profits of the Dominion Iron and Steel Com- 
 pany it would be as unfair to take the prices that prevailed in a 
 period of world-wide depression as it would be to take those pre- 
 vailing during this year of extraordinary prosperity. 
 
The Markets for Iron and Steel. 
 
 From the Montreal Daily Star, November 3, x8gg. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 # 
 
 ^HE population of the United States is only about 
 thirteen times as great as that of Canada, but 
 in the year 1898 for every ton of pig-iron pro- 
 duced in Canada 161 tons were produced in 
 the United States. The output of the blast furnaces of the 
 United States was 11,773,934 tons, while only 73,039 tons were 
 produced in Canada. In addition to the pig iron made in this 
 country, Canada consumed 40,995 tons of imported pig-iron and 
 cast iron scrap, making a total consumption of 114,035 tons. If 
 
 the same quantity of pig-iron per head of population were used 
 in Canada as is used in the United States about 900,000 tons of 
 pig-iron would ba required. It has been said that the quantity 
 of iron consumed in a country per head of population is a 
 measure of its civilization. Is Canada so far behind the United 
 States in civilization as these figures would indicate ? No one 
 who has travelled through the two countries will think so for a 
 moment. The explanation is that pig-iron is simply a raw 
 material for a great variety of iron and steel manufactures, and 
 Canada imports a far greater quantity of manufactures of iron 
 and steel in proportion to population than the United States. In 
 the year 1898 the value of iron and steel and manufactures thereof 
 imported into Canada was $16,556,761. During the same year 
 the value of iron and steel and manufactures thereof imported 
 into the United States was only $12,473,637. If the Americans 
 had imported as large a quantity per capita as Canadians, the 
 value of their importations would have been over $215,000,000. 
 It is evident that Canadians are not behind the age as regards 
 the consumption of iron and steel, but we get from other countries 
 what we ought to make at home. 
 
 In the past Canadian manufacturers using iron and steel as 
 raw materials have been at a disadvantage because these articles 
 have been made in Canada in such small quantities that the 
 prices prevailing here have been much higher than in Great 
 Britain, the United States and other great iron countries. But 
 when the works of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company at 
 
6o 
 
 Sydney, C. B. , are in full operation it will be possible to obtain 
 pig-iron and steel billets as cheaply in Canada as in any other coun- 
 try in the world, and there ought to be an extraordinary develop- 
 ment of all the industries using iron and steel as raw materials. 
 Even with our present population, if all the iron and steel 
 articles used in Canada were made in Canada from Canadian pig- 
 iron and Canadian steel, we would require nearly twice as much 
 pig-iron as the four great blast furnaces of the Dominion Iron 
 and Steel Company and all the other blast furnaces now in oper- 
 ation in Canada could produce. But Canada will not stand still 
 as regards population. We have entered upon a period of great 
 national development. Our farm lands are being rapidly settled, 
 our mines of gold, silver, copper, lead and nickel are being 
 developed, the cities and towns are growing rapidly in popu- 
 lation and wealth, and the demand for iron and steel is increasing 
 every year. 
 
 Not many years ago Canada imported nearly all iti manu- 
 factures of iron and steel from Great Britain. During the last 
 few years a great change has taken place. American iron and steel 
 articles have almost completely displaced the British articles in 
 the Canadian market. Another change is coming. Canadian 
 manufactures will displace American manufactures in the 
 Canadian market. No doubt in many cases American concerns 
 that now have an extensive trade in Canada will start branch 
 manufacturing establishments in this country. There is a 
 splendid field for enterprise in supplying the people of Canada 
 with all kinds of articles made of iron and steel. Sydney, C.B., 
 will offer special advantages as a location for such industries, 
 and no doubt the Dominion Iron and Steel Company will do all 
 in their power to encourage the establishment in the vicinity of 
 their works of manufactories using iron and steel as raw materials, 
 but such industries will not be confined to any one town or any 
 one province. During the season of navigation pig-iron and 
 steel from Sydney can be laid down in Montreal very cheaply, 
 and as the enlargement of the St. I^awrence canals is now prac- 
 tically completed and boats drawing 14 feet of water will be able 
 to go from Sydney to the head of the great lakes, no doubt Cape 
 Breton iron and steel will be able to compete successfully with 
 the products of Pennsylvania in the markets of Ontario. 
 
 But the Dominion Iron and Steel Company will not be 
 entirely dependent upon Canadian demands for their products. 
 Indeed, it is probable that their whole output could be sold in 
 Great Britain, Germany, Belgium and other markets outside of 
 Canada. It was shown in a previous article that the supplies of 
 iron ore in Great Britain and other countries of Europe are 
 rapidly being exhausted, that Great Britain has long been de- 
 pendent upon Spain for iron ore, and the Spanish mines are 
 giving out. At the present time England is importing iron ore 
 from the Gellivara district of Sweden, which is considerably 
 north of the Arctic circle. The ore is carried by rail across 
 
6i 
 
 Sweden and Norway to the Norwegian harbour of Ofoten, 130 
 miles north of the Arctic circle, where it is shipped to the British 
 blast furnaces. 
 
 The supplies of coke in Germany and Belgium are not suf- 
 ficient for their requirements, and they are obliged to import 
 considerable quantities of pig-iron chiefly from Great Britain. 
 
 Germany annually imports between 400,000 and 500,000 tons 
 of pig-iron, and Belgium about 300,000 tons. In both of these 
 countries the manufacture of steel is carried on very extensively, 
 and the output of their blast furnaces is not large enough to meet 
 the demands of the steel mills. It has been shown in a previous 
 article that Cape Breton pig-iron can be laid down in Great 
 Britain at a cost considerably below even the lowest prices of 
 British iron, so that it should have no difficulty in competing 
 with British pig-iron in G2rmany and Belgium. France last 
 year imported over two million tons of ore for use in its blast 
 furnaces. 
 
 While the supplies of ore in the iron-making countries of 
 Europe are becoming exhausted, iron is being used more exten- 
 sively every year for a great variety of purposes. In the En- 
 gineering Magazine for October, Mr. Archer Brown, of the 
 great iron firm of Rogers, Brown & Co., New York, has an 
 interesting article on the future of the American iron industry, 
 in which he shows that the consumption of iron and steel in the 
 United States doubles once in ten years. He gives figures show- 
 ing that the consumption of iron and steel per capita is steadily 
 increasing in all countries. He says : " The world's consumption 
 of pig-iron grows in geometrical ratio. In 1740 it did not amount 
 to one pound for each inhabitant. In 1856 it was about 17 pounds 
 p2r capita ; in 1893 it wa^ 35 pounds per capita ; in iqdd it will 
 probably be 60 pounds per capita. ' ' 
 
 In 1893 the consumption par capita in the United States was 
 300 pounds, in Great Britain 250 pounds, in France, Germany 
 and Belgium 175 pounds. 
 
 The opening up of Africa to civilization will greatly in- 
 crease the demand for iron and steel, which will be required for 
 railways, bridges and many other purposes. 
 
 Within the last ten years the iron and steel manufacturers 
 of the United States have developed an important export busi- 
 ness. In 1880 the exports of iron and steel, and manufactures 
 thereof from the United States amounted in value to only $15,- 
 156,703, while the imports were valued at 1180,443,362. In 1898, 
 while the imports had decreased to $12,473,637, the exports of 
 iron and steel had increased to $91,844,934, including the ex- 
 ports of agricultural implements which were valued at $9,073,- 
 384. The exports of pig-iron were not large, nearly the whole 
 quantity exported, except what came to Canada, going from the 
 
62 
 
 Southern States. The pig-iron exports for the year classed by 
 ports of shipment, were as follows ; 
 
 Tons. Value. 
 
 Norfolk S3,43S $534,397 
 
 New Orleans 5i>7o3 * 674,516 
 
 Pensacola 23>3>3 226.540 
 
 Brunswick 19,032 190,310 
 
 New York 18,620 369,651 
 
 Baltimore I4ii64 368,380 
 
 Mobile I3i295 126,690 
 
 All othec ports 69,121 778,526 
 
 Total 262,686 $3,269,010 
 
 A larger quantity of pig-iron might have been exported, 
 but the output was not much more than sufficient to supply the 
 nianufacturers of the United States. 
 
 The American iron and steel exports consist chiefly of 
 articles made of iron and steel, including steel rails, steel sheets 
 and plates, structural iron and steel, wire, nails and spikes, 
 tacks, car wheels, cutlery, firearms, locks, hinges and other hard- 
 ware, saws, tools, electrical machinery, metal working machinery, 
 pumps and pumping machinery, sewing machines, shoemaking 
 machinery, fire engines, locomotive engines, stationary engines, 
 parts of engines and boilers, pipes and fittings, safes, scales and 
 balances, stoves, ranges, agricultural machinery, bicycles, etc., 
 etc. 
 
 Sydney would be an admirable location for the manufacture 
 of most of these articles, both for export and for the home market, 
 which as already shown is now supplied almost entirely by the 
 manufacturers of the United States. With cheap iron and steel, 
 cheap fuel, at tidewater with a magnificent harbour nearer to the 
 markets of Europe, Asia, Africa and South America than any 
 port of the United States manufacturers locating there should be 
 able to compete with those of the United States in exporting all 
 kinds of articles made of iron and steel. Already the Montreal 
 Rolling Mills Company are considering a proposal to establish 
 a branch at Sydney and will probably do so if satisfactory ar- 
 rangements can be made with the town of Sydney as regards 
 site and taxation. 
 
 The following table shows the distances from Sydney, C.B., 
 Pittsburg, Pa. , and Birmingham, Alabama, to various markets : 
 
 , Distances From v 
 
 Sydney. Pittsburg. Birmingham. To 
 
 2,282 3<5I4 4>7S2 Liverpool 
 
 2,564 3,762 5,030 Antwerp 
 
 6,467 7,224 7,585 Cape Town 
 
 3,567 4,100 4,409 Pernambuco 
 
 5,110 5'^43 5,952 Buenos Ay res 
 
 8,331 8,864 9,173 Valparaiso 
 
 12,961 13,494 13,^03 San Francisco 
 
 13,071 13,604 13,913 Honolulu 
 
 12,350 »3,I07 13,468 Melbourne 
 
 000 675 1,275 Boston 
 
 719 iNPf ■ i»27o Montreal 
 
63 
 
 It should be noted that the distances from Pittsburg and 
 Birmingham are partly by railway while from Sydney they are 
 by deep water all t|ie way. It is unnecessary to say that deep 
 water transportation is much cheaper than railway transportation. 
 
 This tabic of distances is based upon figures furnished by 
 Capt.W. H. Smith, R.N.R., chairman of the Board of Examiners 
 of Masters and Mates, Marine Department, Halifax, by the 
 United States Commissioner of Navigation and the United States 
 Bureau of Statistics at Washington, the railway distances from 
 Pittsburg to Philadelphia and from Birmingham, Ala., to Mobile 
 being added to the ocean distances. The distance from Sydney 
 to Montreal is taken from the table of distances in a report issued 
 by the Harbour Commissioners of Montreal and is measured from 
 lyow Point Lighthouse, at the mouth of Sydney Harbour. The 
 distance from the pier of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company 
 would be seven or eight miles greater. The distances from Pitts- 
 burg and Birmingham to Montreal and Boston are all rail. 
 
 One of the possibilities of the near future is the revival of 
 shipbuilding in the Maritime Provinces, which in the days of 
 wooden ships built more vessels in proportion to population than 
 any other country. Ship plates can probably be made more 
 cheaply in Sydney than anywhere else in the world and the 
 Dominion Iron and Steel Company contemplate their manu- 
 facture on an extensive scale, either for home consumption or 
 for export. 
 
The Right flan for flanager. 
 
 From the Montreal Daily Star, November aa, i8gg. 
 
 n 
 
 IX. 
 
 [Lt, Canadians who have been watching the 
 development at Sydney, Cape Breton, of 
 the Dominion Iron and Steel Company's en- 
 terprise, which promises to make Canada 
 one of the leading iron and steel exporting conntries of the woild, 
 will be interested in knowing something about Mr. Arthur J. 
 Moxham, who was appointed manager of the company at the 
 meeting of the Board of Directors in Montreal yesterday. 
 
 Having learned from Mr. Henry M. Whitney that he hoped 
 to secure Mr. Moxham as manager, the Star has instituted 
 special enquiries among iron and steel men in the United States 
 to ascertain his fitness for this responsible position. Mr. Charles 
 Kirchoff , editor of the Iron Age, than whom there is no better 
 authority in the United States, being asked by a Star man what he 
 thought of the appointment, said : " If it is true that the Dom- 
 inion Iron and Steel Company have secured Mr. Arthur J. Mox- 
 ham as manager we may expect to see the plant in operation in 
 a very short time. Mr. Moxham can be depended upon to make 
 things go with a rush. He is a hustler and will lose no time in 
 pushing the works to completion. He is a man of extraordinary 
 force and business capacity and is noted for the success which 
 has attended all his enterprises. No man could be found better 
 fitted to take the management. He has had practical experience 
 in all the details of manufacturing iron and steel and is a splen- 
 did organizer and manager of men." 
 
 Mr. Arthur J. Moxham is an Englishman by birth, but went 
 from England to Kentucky in 1869, at the age of fifteen. His 
 family held a very good social position in England, although they 
 were in reduced circumstances at that time and it was thought 
 that he could not learn a trade in that country without injuring 
 the standing of the family, but he had a natural bent for mechan- 
 ical work and being anxious to make his own way decided to 
 come to America. Starting in a rolling mill in lyouisville in 1870 
 
65 
 
 as receiving clerk, he afterwards obtained practical experience of 
 every department of the work and mastered all the details of the 
 business. Upon the failure of the company as a result of the 
 panic of 1873, the business went into the hands of a receiver, and 
 Mr. Moxham, in association with some friends, leased the works 
 and operated them with great success for some years. He after- 
 wards organized the Birmingham Rolling Mills Company, and in 
 1878 built rolling mills at Birmingham, Ala. The works were 
 completed and put into operation within eight months from the 
 time of the preparation of the first plans. At this time he was 
 only twenty-four years of age. The rolling mills practically 
 doubled the population of Birmingham. Wliile at Birmingham 
 Mr. Tom L. Johnson approached him to undertake the manufac- 
 ture of what was at that time a new type of rail now universally 
 used for tramways and street railroads, being known as the 
 "girder rail." He had endeavoured to secure its manufacture at 
 many points, but owing to the difficulties involved in rolling this 
 complicated shape in the state of the art as developed at that 
 period had secured no one willing to undertake it. Mr. Moxham 
 decided to experiment and after many difficulties succeeded. This 
 led to a partnership between Mr. Johnson and Mr. Moxham. Out 
 of this grew the Johnson Company, which became the largest 
 manufacturers of street railway supplies in the world. Works 
 were erected at Johnstown, Pa., for the manufacture of not only 
 the rails, but the switches and other essentials. The rolling 
 mills were built within a period of nine months from the time of 
 breaking ground to the time of rolling the steel. The busi- 
 ness continuing to grow, the erection of larger works became a 
 necessity. 
 
 Up to this time the company had purchased the ste2l used 
 in the rolling mills, but it was now decided to engage in the 
 manufacture of steel, and after a critical investigation into the 
 advantages of different points, Lorain, Ohio, on the southern 
 shore of Lake Erie, was selected as the best location for the new 
 works, and the company erected there a large Bessemer steel 
 plant, together with the necessary blooming mills and rail mills. 
 The work of construction was commenced on the first of July, 
 1894, and the first steel was made on the first of April, 1895, a 
 period of nine months, although predictions were freely made 
 that the plant could not be started in less than from eighteen' 
 months to two years. Blast furnaces for the manufacture of pig- 
 iron were afterward built. About 4,000 acres of land were secur- 
 ed and simultaneously with the construction of the works what 
 was practically a new town was built with all such public improve- 
 ments as were involved in the supply of water, laying out of 
 streets, building sidewalks, constructing sewers and laying water 
 pipes. A virgin forest had to be removed and about eighty tons 
 of dynamite were used in clearing away the trees alone. The 
 population of Lorain was increased by these works from 5,500 to 
 11,000 within two years and that of Elyria, an adjoining town, 
 
66 
 
 by about 2,000. The works were afterwards greatly extended 
 and the number of employes largely increased. 
 
 The Lorain Steel Company's plants were sold to the Federal 
 Steel Company, as one of the great concerns formed by the 
 couvsolidation of several large steel companies is called. The 
 Lorain plant was the second unit, of manufacture under the 
 amalgamation. Mr. Moxham, who was president of the Lorain 
 Steel Company at the time of the amalgamation, remained with 
 the Federal Steel Company in the same capacity until the 22nd 
 of March, 1899, when he tendered his resignation and retired 
 for the purpose of withdrawing from all business. He had sold 
 his interest in the Lornin Steel Company, and having now a com- 
 petence determined to take a rest after thirty years of hard work. 
 He purchased the well-known yacht Erl King and started on a tour 
 of two years around the world. During the past summer he visited 
 the British Isles and went as far north as Norway, but happening 
 to stop at New York after a yachting trip of about four months, 
 he accidentally met Mr. Henry M. Whitney, with whom he was 
 well acquainted, having had extensive business dealings with him 
 at the time when Mr. Whitney was president of the West-End 
 Street Railway of Boston and inaugurated the first great electric 
 street railway system. 
 
 From Mr. Whitney he learned of the great developments in 
 progress at Sydney, Cape Breton, and having great confidence in 
 Mr. Whitney's business judgment he at once became greatly in- 
 terested in what he said about the great natural advantages of 
 Sydney as a location for an iron and steel industry. The course 
 of Mr. Moxham 's experience from 1870 to 1895 had been in a 
 strict line with the changed conditions of steel manufacture, each 
 new step having been made in what may be termed the centre of 
 gravity of most economical production as this changed owing to 
 the development of the country and the discovery of new 
 localities for raw materials. He was much impressed with what 
 he heard about the cheapness with which the raw materials for 
 iron-making could be assembled at Sydney and decided to make 
 a thorough investigation. He not only visited the locality him- 
 self, but sent an expert to examine the ore deposits of Great 
 Bell Island, and after a month's careful study of all the conditions 
 he came to the conclusion that iron and steel could be made more 
 economically at Sydney than anywhere else and decided to accept 
 an ofiFer to become manager of the company and invest in its 
 securities. 
 
 It will be a source of gratification to Canadians that a man 
 of such practical experience in the manufacture of iron and steel 
 as Mr. Moxham has formed the opinion that Canada possesses 
 the best location in the world for the manufacture of iron and 
 steel. 
 
 Canadians in general will be pleased to know that the 
 manager of this g^eat enterprise is a British subject, although 
 
this fact had nothing whatever to do with his selection for the 
 position. 
 
 Mr. Moxham, although a resident of the United States for 
 thirty years, never became naturalized. This was at one time 
 made a matter of reproach in the United States Congress, and 
 Congressman Johnson, of Ohio, in defending him, said : " This 
 man Moxham is not a citizen of the United States, but he is a 
 resident of • Johnstown ; they know him there, and when that 
 fearful flood swept down ; when, after that awful night, twelve 
 thousand people were left without food or shelter, and the sun 
 rose on three thousand corpses, it was this Englishman, this 
 Arthur J. Moxham, who at the first gathering of the survivors, 
 was by common acclaim made dictator. It was he who in that 
 dreadful moment, stepped to the front, and, in the name of the 
 whole community, brought order out of chaos — who destroyed 
 whiskey and seized food, who fed the living and buried the 
 dead, and again set in motion the machinery of organized gov- 
 ernment and civilized life."