THE IRON INDUSTRY.

The second of the course of lectures which are being given under the auspices of the Finance Club, was delivered last evening by Prof. T. Sterry Hunt, the geologist, before an audience which comfortably filled Sever 11. The lecturer, who was introduced by Prof. Laughlin, president of the Finance Club, began by speaking of the extent of the subject and the difficulty of handling it in so short a time. The rapid growth of the industry was shown by statistics of the iron produce of this and other countries during the last few years. In 1882 the total product of iron was 20,600,000tons, of which 4,600,000 was used in the United States. The outlying districts of Lake Superior, New Jersey and Lake Chaplain furnish one half of the ores used here. Their ore is of a higher grade than that furnished by the Pennsylvania mines, lying in the centre of the so-called iron regions.

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The various processes of smelting were carefully explained and the improvements which have taken place since the rise of the industry were described, from the primitive method to the present blast furnace, each receiving a careful description. The pudding process which was formerly a very important industry, requiring over 2,000,000 tons of ore in 1882, is rapidly passing away and being superseded by soft steel, which the lecturer described at some length.

The Bessemer process was next described. By this the cost of steel has been very materially lowered. A good example of the effect of the discovery of this process upon the price of steel is seen by the increased manufacture of steel rails. A few years ago it was the boast of a few railroads that their rails were made of steel, but now scarcely a road is without this improvement, and iron rails are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. On account of a recent improvement, the power of the Bessemer process has been largely increased. It was formerly limited to certain ores, which were scarce in the coal region of our country, but now can be extended to such a degree as to be almost universal in its workings.

For this and other courses the speaker was confident that in a few years we would become large exporters of iron, supplanting England in this respect. The lecture closed with a description of the open-hearth process by which the so-called Martin steel is manufactured, and an account of the present condition of the iron industry in this country.