Mining, the priceless heritage

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CONDITION frompound of coal OF THE STEEL INDUSTRY The entire flow of Niagara 25 Falls would be equivalent to an imaginary stream of coal flowing through an 18 inch pipe atrate but slightly faster thanwalk In regard to the use of steam power in the early days it is amusing to quote from the philosophy of Samuel Brock who died in 1862 Steam interferes with the comfort of traveling It destroys every salutary distinction in society and overturns by its whirligig power the once rational gentlemanly and safe mode of getting along onjourney Talk of ladies on boardsteamboat or onrailroad car There are none To restore herself to caste letlady move in select company at five miles an hour As to petroleum the trend of production has been markedly upward for the past 25 years The production of petroleum since the middle twenties has amounted to more than the reserves then known Despite increasing production reserves have continued to grow The effect of recent drilling to depths of 15 000 feet is to add new reserves to our petroleum resources As intimated before the Sun Oil Company is spending 35 millions for 10 plants which will use the Houdry synthetic process for producing gasoline from crude oil This process will convert 80 instead of the usual 45 of any crude oil into 80-octane gasoline For pig iron the trend has been somewhat erratic but production is again approximately at its high point Domestic output has not quite regained its former peak but foreign production has pass ed its former high point In regard to the iron and steel industry if one man owned the entire American steel industry hisbillion dollar investment would not have earned himfair return since 1930 according to the Iron Steel Institute Over the past 10 years he would have received 37 less income than if he had depositedlike sum in an ordinary saving account atbank The weighted average of earnings on capitalization after all charges but before dividends has been only5 through the period from 1925 to 1934 Even in 1929 when more steel was produced than in any other year the industry carned only2 By drawing against surplus of the profitable year the steel industry has been able to continue operations with few receiverships during recent years in which payrolls depreciation taxes and various other expenses have exceeded income by the estimated amount of 285 million dollars Some idea of the magnitude of this industry is given by the following data To manufac ture one ton of pig iron requires abouttons of air 114 tons of iron ore almostton of coke ton of limestone and about 14 ton of scrap mill scale and cinder To transport 49 million tons of the raw materials at one time would require 10 000 trains eachmile 10 Mining Metallurgy December 1938 511 Digital image 2008 University of Utah All rights reserved