XXXIX.
IRON AND IRON MINES.
IRON AND ITS VALUE.—ITS ABUNDANCE, AND WHERE IT IS FOUND.—A MOUNTAIN OF IRON.—IRON MOUNTAIN AND PILOT KNOB.—THE AUTHOR’S VISIT.—CHASED BY GUERRILLAS.—A NARROW ESCAPE.—THE ANTIQUITY OF IRON.—ITS VALUE IN MANIPULATION.—IRON AS MONEY.—INCONVENIENCE OF USING IT.—FIRST IRON WORKS IN AMERICA.—DIFFERENCE BETWEEN IRON AND OTHER MINES.—DIRECT AND REVERSE WORKINGS.—A PICTURESQUE SCENE.
Of all the metals, iron is the most useful, and is found in great abundance in many parts of the globe. England, Sweden, and Russia are the most famous countries of the old world for the production of iron, and in the new world, North America has an inexhaustible supply. Along the Atlantic coast, from the New England States to the Carolinas and Georgia, there are numerous deposits of iron. On the west side of the Alleghanies there is an abundant supply. The great centre of the iron mines of that region is at Pittsburg. As we go farther west, we find most of the states are rich in this mineral, and in Missouri there is a mountain composed almost entirely of iron. The Iron Mountain of Missouri is of itself a great curiosity.
A MOUNTAIN OF IRON.
It is situated in Washington County, and is easily reached by railway from St. Louis. Properly speaking, it is not a mountain, but a hill. Its elevation above the valleys around it is less than four hundred feet. It is a low cone, with gently-sloping sides, and covered with a forest of oak trees. The soil where these trees grow consists of peroxide of iron, some of it being pulverized, and some of it in small lumps. On the sides of the mountain there are loose lumps of ore scatteredabout, and before the workings began there were large masses of iron on and near the summit, some of them weighing many tons. Though the character of the mountain has been known for many years, no attempt was made to work this immense mass of ore until 1845.
A cutting was made in one side of the mountain, and the ore was found to be of excellent quality. In the valleys surrounding the mountain there is an abundance of ore, and for all practical purposes the iron mines of Missouri are inexhaustible. The ore contains nearly seventy per cent. of iron, though its yield, owing to the manner of working, rarely exceeds sixty per cent. About six miles south of Iron Mountain is Pilot Knob, which covers an area of three hundred and sixty acres, and is nearly six hundred feet high. It contains great quantities of iron, but is not as rich proportionally as the mountain which bears the name of the metal.
About two thirds the way up the side of Pilot Knob, there is one bed of ore about twenty feet thick, and estimated to cover more than fifty acres. Other mountains of the same character are in the vicinity, and all that is required to make the Missouri iron mines the best in the world is the discovery of a mountain or two of coal suitable for reducing the ore and refining the metal.
Iron is applied to a greater number of purposes, and consumed in larger quantities, than all other metals combined. There is no other metal which increases so much in value by the process of manipulation as this. A bar of iron worth five dollars is worth ten dollars when made into horse-shoes, fifty-five dollars when made into needles, four thousand dollars when made into penknife blades, and two hundred and fifty thousand dollars when made into balance springs of watches. In the form of wrought iron it is soft when heated. It can be hammered into any desired shape, rolled into plates, or drawn into fine wire. Plates can be rolled no thicker than a sheet of letter paper. The wires can be drawn so small as to be almost invisible to the naked eye. Combined with a certain quantity of carbon, it can be melted and cast into anydesired shape, and with another proportion of carbon, it takes the form of steel. As before stated, it enters in a thousand ways into our daily life, and if all the iron in the world were destroyed, mankind would suffer greatly.
IRON AS MONEY.
The antiquity of iron is not exactly known, but it is supposed that the metal has been in use more than four thousand years. The catacombs of Thebes and the tombs around Memphis, some of them more than four thousand years old, represent butchers sharpening their knives on round bars of metal, and the color of the knife and metal indicates that they were of iron or steel. Homer has alluded to iron in the poems which have descended from him to us. History tells us that the Spartans were required to use this metal as money; probably it was more valuable at that day than now. If our money were made of iron it would be rather a serious matter for a man to carry cash enough about him to make himself comfortable for twenty-four hours. Imagine a New Yorker, starting on a journey where there were no banks, and he were required to carry a thousand dollars or so in coin. He would need a pair of horses to transport enough for buying his railway ticket to Washington, and for handling the loose change required on the road, he would need the assistance of half a dozen porters.
During the first seven centuries of the Christian era, the manufacture of iron attracted little attention. In the early part of the eighth century, mines were opened in the south of Europe, and from there, in the ninth and tenth centuries, the manufacture of iron spread northward. Improvements in the process of manufacture were steady, but slow. Small furnaces were made by which cast iron was produced, and after them came the invention of the blast furnace, which is said to have occurred about the middle of the sixteenth century. Other improvements were made in the following centuries, and in the eighteenth century a blast was forced into the furnace by means of a steam engine. Up to 1827 the blast was cold; but in that year a Scotch inventor patented a system by which hot air was thrown into the furnace, instead of cold.The invention was regarded of so much importance that the patentee obtained damages of nearly a million of dollars from a single company that had infringed upon his rights.
IRON MINING IN AMERICA.
Iron mining in America belongs almost entirely to the present century. The existence of the ore was known before that time, but very little use was made of it. A History of Virginia says that the settlers of that colony started an iron work on the banks of the James River in the year 1622, but before anything was done, the people were killed by the Indians, and the works were abandoned for more than a hundred years. A few forges and furnaces were set up in various parts of New England, one of them as early as 1702.
In 1717 iron was exported from Pennsylvania to England; and a few years later an act of Parliament prevented the erection of rolling or splitting mills in the American colonies. The greatest improvement in the manufacture of iron, in America, is in the use of anthracite coal. Previous to 1820, iron was reduced by means of charcoal. About that year anthracite coal was tried, and found to be available; and as soon as it came into general use the business of iron manufacture progressed rapidly.
The working of an iron mine is very much like working a mine of any other character. There are shafts, and tunnels, and levels, just as in a coal mine. The ore must be raised, and the men lowered and raised, just as in any other mine. There are, however, more open worked mines of iron than of coal, for the reason that the veins of iron are generally found nearer the surface than the veins of the combustible mineral. In the Iron Mountain of Missouri, which has already been described, there is no necessity for shafts and levels, for the reason that the mountain is a mass of ore, and the only working necessary is to remove it in an open cutting, just as a bank of earth might be removed in making a passage for a railway.
The only visit I ever made to the Iron Mountain and Pilot Knob region was during the war, when work at the blast furnaces had been suspended. A small party of us climbedto the summit of Pilot Knob, and it was not a great climb, after all. We found that the mine consisted entirely of open cuttings. The ore was drawn away from the cuttings by means of small cars, running upon a track. As the cuttings were partly up the side of the mountain, the loaded cars had a downward grade, so that no power was required to move them. Considered as mines with picturesque cuttings and underground scenes, they were a total failure.
CHASED BY GUERRILLAS.
We looked around among them, and found nothing which we could call sensational. While we were lamenting the absence of something interesting, a small party of guerrillas made their appearance in the valley below. They were armed, and we were not, and they were more numerous than ourselves. They moved straight in our direction, and we began to think that the place might be sensational, after all. We scattered among the oak trees, and disappeared as much as it was possible for us to disappear. The guerrillas evidently concluded that we were not worth attacking,—and they were entirely right in this conclusion,—for they changed their course, and rode away. We immediately abandoned our researches among the iron works, and returned to the railway station, which we considered a much safer place.
INTERIOR OF AN IRON MINE.
INTERIOR OF AN IRON MINE.
In many metallic mines the operations are not conducted exactly like those of coal mines, for the reason that the position of the veins and beds is frequently quite different. Some of the metal lodes are sometimes perpendicular, and generally have a high inclination to the horizon. In such cases, the system of working is by means of steps. Sometimes these steps aredirect, or descending, and are made by attacking the ore from above. In other cases the steps arereverse, or ascending, and the ore is attacked from below. In either case the excavations are like steps of stairs. The direct system is not in use in coal mines, because the miner would be obliged to stand upon the coal which he had disengaged; but it is frequently adopted in obtaining metallic ores, which have to be pulverized and dressed to make them fit for the furnace.
Where the metallic ores are in very rich lodes, or thickmasses, they are worked by a system of large chambers, or extensive excavations. In this system great chambers are hollowed under the earth and around the masses of valuable ore. In the copper mine of Lake Superior, and in some of the Nevada mines, this system is frequently employed, and sometimes the uncovering of a large mass will require considerable time.
The methods and apparatus used in the underground beds and levels of coal are equally applicable to iron and all other ores. The railway wagons and horses are the same in the levels and galleries of all kinds of mines. The workings are conducted upon the same principle; the ventilation is afforded by the same means, and the surveys are accomplished in one case the same as in the other. The arrangements of the shafts are very much the same, and the buildings at the surface have a family likeness. There is, however, more animation usually about coal than about metal mines, for the reason that very few metal mines furnish in the course of a month as much weight of material as some coal mines do in a single day.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN IRON AND OTHER MINES.
In metallic mines the work is generally harder than in coal mines, and a great deal of blasting work is required. The drills, hammers, and other tools used are like those used elsewhere, and sometimes the groups at work are very picturesque. Imagine three men stripped to the waist, one of them holding a drill and the others striking at alternate and regular intervals with large hammers. A single lamp burns near them, and makes a curious effect of light and shade. The perspiring skins of the men glisten beneath the rays, and as they swing their arms back and forth to wield the heavy hammers, they have an appearance not altogether human. A novice in mining, when taken to the locality where these men are at work, might easily be persuaded that he was looking at a group of gnomes and wizards engaged in some diabolical business.
REFRACTORY ORES.
In the production of iron it is generally found less expensive to transport the ore to the coal than to transport the coal to the ore. Most of the ores are carried to points where coalcan be obtained at a cheap rate; and where coal mines and iron mines are found close together, the production of iron will be most profitable. For example, the ores that are obtained in Oneida County, New York, are transported to the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania, to be smelted in the great furnaces at Scranton, and the canal boats that carry the ore bring back coal for the furnaces near the mines. The reduction of iron ore is much more difficult, in most cases, than the work of obtaining the material from the earth. Sometimes the ore is of such a peculiar character that it will only yield to the hottest fires, and frequently the furnaces are run at considerable loss.