METALLURGY AND MINING
All the processes of metallurgy and mining employ statical, hydraulic, mechanical, and electrical engineering. Coal, without railways and canals, would be of little use, unless electrical engineering came to its aid.
It was estimated by the late Lord Armstrong that of the 450,000,000 to 500,000,000 tons of coal annually produced in the world, one-third is used for steam production, one-third in metallurgical processes, and one-third for domestic consumption. This last item seems large. It is the most important manufacturing industry in the world, as may be seen by comparing the coalless condition of the eighteenth century with the coal-using condition of the nineteenth century.
Next in importance comes the production of iron and steel. Steel, on account of its great cost and brittleness, was only used for tools and special purposes until past the middle of the last century. This has been all changed by the invention of his steel by Bessemer in 1864, and open-hearth steel in the furnace of Siemens, perfected some twenty years since by Gilchrist & Thomas.
The United States have taken the lead in steel manufacture. In 1873 Great Britain made three times as much steel as the United States. Now the United States makes twice as much as Great Britain, or forty per cent. of all the steel made in the world.
Mr. Carnegie has explained the reason why, in epigrammatic phrase: “Three pounds of steel billets can be sold for two cents.”
This stimulates rail and water traffic and other industries, as he tells us one pound of steel requires two pounds of ore, one and one-third pounds of coal, and one-third of a pound of limestone.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the States bordering on the lakes have created a traffic of 25,000,000 tons yearly through the Sault Ste. Marie Canal, while the Suez, which supplies the wants of half the population of the world, has only 7,000,000, or less than the tonnage of the little Harlem River at New York.