The Flaxseed-Ore of Wisconsin. [Volume: 8, Issue: 4, 1889, pp. 244-250]

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UNITED STATES ASSOCIATION OF

[VOL. 8,

In speaking of the supply of ores to German and French blastfurnaces, the President of the British Iron Trade Association says:
" Germany has been largely reducing her imports of ore, and her
make of Bessemer pig-iron, within recent years. So recently as
1882, the production of Bessemer pig in Germany was 734,000
tons out of a total of 3,171,000 tons, being about 23 per cent. of
the whole. In 1888 the production of Bessemer iron had fallen to
about 300,000 tols out of a total of 4,229,000 tons, being 7 per
cent. of the whole. Germany has very little ore suitable for Bessemer process, having, in 1886, produced only 159,000 tols of pigiron from home ores of this description, while 267,000 tons were
produced from imported Bessemer ores. The future of the German
iron industry appears to be identified with the basic process, for
the production of which the Fatherland has large deposits of ore,
alike in Prussia, in Alsace-Lorraine, and in the adjacent Grand
Duchy of Luxemburg, such ores costing on an average not more
than Is. 6d. to 2s. (say from 36 cents to 48 cents) at the mines, and
furnishing probably the cheapest raw materials of this description
in the world. The production of iron-ores in Germany in 1887
amounted to 9,351,000 tons as compared with 5,457,000 tons in
1878, so that there has been an increase of 3,894,000 tons within
ten years."
From an examination of the Iron Ridge ore-deposit of Wisconsin
we feel confident that from a portion of it, at least, ore can be won
at a cost below that given above for some of the foreign ores.
Like Germany, France has within recent years developed the
basic process to a relatively greater extent than England, producing
in 1888 some 222,000 tons of basic steel, out of a total output of
steel of all kinds amounting to just under 500,000 tons. About
one-half, therefore, of the steel now produced in France is made by
the basic process. The same remark applies to Belgium, which has,
in the adjoining Grand-Duchy of Luxemburg, a practically unlimited supply of cheap ores well adapted for the basic process,
which is making decided progress in the country.
In connection with the use of phosphoritic iron-ores we excerpt
the following remarks and statistics, from a discussion of "The
Basic Process in the United States," by Professor William B.
Phillips in the Engineering and Mining Journal.
"The increase in the manufacture of basic Bessemer steel or, as I