Where Our Iron Ore Comes From. [Volume: 8, Issue: 3, 1889, pp. 195-200]

No. 3.]

CHARCOAL IRON WORKERS.

199

the Southern States based on the pig-iron output for the year,
allowance being made for shipments of ore from one State to
another. A calculation made in this way shows that in 1886
the States of Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky produced about one and three quarter million gross tons, while in 1887 the output of the mines slightly
exceeded two million tons. The consumption of ore in these
States in 1888 approximated 2,500,000 gross tons. Of this
amount fully seventy per cent. was red hematite or fossil ore,
about twenty-five per cent. brown hematites, and probably about
five per cent. magnetite. Alabama contributed about 1,009,000
gross tons, Tennessee is estimated to have supplied 615,000 gross
tons, and Virginia between 450,000 and 500,000 tons.
Authentic records of the quantity of iron ore imported are not
obtainable, except, since the year 1879, but these figures show
that in the past ten years an aggregate of 6,340,062 gross tons
of iron. ore were brought into the United States from foreign
countries.
From the foregoing data it is possible to arrange the various
sources of iron ore supply according to their amounts of ore produced in 1888. It is not claimed that the relative order or the
quantities are absolutely correct but they are as nearly so as it
is possible to make them without actual returns from numerous
small mines.
RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF VARIOUS DISTRICTS IN 1888.
Gross tons mined
Order Name. in 1888.
1. Marquette range, Lake Superior region,. 1,921,525
2. Gogebic " " " t 1,424,762
3. Menominee " '" " " 1,165,039
4. Alabama, (estimated,)..... 1,000,000
5. Lake Champlain district, New York,..789,419
6. Cornwall ore hills, Pennsylvania,... 722,921
7. Other Pennsylvania mines, (estimated,)* 700,000
8. Tennessee, (estimated,)......... 615,000
9. Foreign ores,.............. 587,420
10. Vermilion range, Lake Superior region, 511,953
11. Virginia, (estimated,).......... 450,000
12. New Jersey,................ 447,738
13. Missouri, t........... 160,000
The important position which various districts hold as contributors to our mineral wealth will also appear from the total
*The total output of Pennsylvania, including the Cornwall ore hills,
would probably make that State rank as third.
t Shipments from Iron Mountain and Pilot Knob only.