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the coke is, on the whole, strong and suitable for blast furnaces. Coking coal, containing 20 per cent. of volatile matter and 3 to 7 per cent. of ash, produces coke containing an average of 10.5 per cent. of ash and 1.125 per cent. of sulphur. Coppée coke ovens largely used in this district, being supplied with modern coal-handling appliances, and giving a yield, or ratio of coke to coal charged, of about 73 per cent. As a rule, the byeproducts are not recovered from the gases, which are allowed to burn freely in the air. The ovens are frequently built and financed by the patentee, on a working agreement with the company.

Flux. No iron district can be considered complete without a supply of flux for mixing with the coke and ore in blast furnaces, and in this respect also, nature has been bountiful to South Russia. There are plentiful deposits of limestone, not only near the Krivoy Rog ore, but along the Ekaterine Railway and in the Donetz coal basin. About half a ton of limestone per ton of pig iron is required to flux the Krivoy Rog ores. Limestone can be obtained in the open market for about 4s. 8d. per ton.

Portland Cement.-An allied industry is the manufacture of Portland cement, which is carried on to a considerable extent. The writer visited an open quarry, in which chalk was obtained at one end and clay at the other, of a quality suitable for making cement. These were conveyed about half a mile and manufactured into Portland cement in a wellequipped and modern factory, having a capacity of 100,000 barrels a year.

Manganese Ore.-Manganese ore, which is essential for the manufacture of spiegeleisen and ferro-manganese, both of which are required for steel making, occurs in South Russia in large quantities. The mining districts in Russia are in three groups, viz. :(a) Caucasus, (b) Urals, (c) Government of Ekaterinoslav.

(a) Caucasus.-The mining area is in the Sharapan region, on the Transcaucasian Railway, the shipping port being Poti, on the Black Sea. From here it is shipped either to foreign countries, or to Marioupol or Nicolaief for Russian consumption. This district is the most important manganese ore producing centre in the world, the output at present being about 4,500,000 tons a year, of which about 10 per cent. is used in South Russia.

(6) Urals.-The mines occur in the Govern

ments of Perm and Orenburg, but the production is small and the industry is not important.

This

(c) Government of Ekaterinoslay. group which more nearly concerns the subject of this paper, is situated near the town of Nicopol, on the Dneiper river, and consists of two groups :-The Nicopol group, and the Richishche group, the latter being named after a tributary of the Dnieper river. The Nicopol group contains two principal mines, those of the Nicopol-Marioupol Company and the Briansk Company. The ore requires cleaning, but owing to the scarcity of water, the process has to be performed dry, and the resulting ore contains only about 44 per cent. of manganese. The Richishche group contains only one mine now working, viz., the Horodishche mine, belonging to the Dnieprovienne Company, as well as several others idle or under development. The ore in this group occurs in the form of a practically horizontal bed, about 9 feet thick, of granular peroxide of manganese, or pyrolusite. It is contemporaneous with the over-lying beds, having been deposited with them by aqueous action, and forming the bottom layer on account of its greater weight. It rests on a massive and somewhat uneven bed of granite, which forms the subsoil of all this part of Southern Russia, being sometimes separated therefrom by a thin layer of kaolin or decomposed granite. The manganese ore is in grains between the size of a pea and a nut, and is mixed with coarse sand, but sometimes conglomerated into masses by a hard argillaceous cement and mixed with quartz grains. Frequently a thin layer of manganite or sesquioxide of manganese is found in the lower part of the ore bed. Both the depth and the thickness of the bed are somewhat irregular.

The manganese ore is easily separated from the sand by washing. It is soft enough to be extracted by pick and shovel, one miner getting four cubic yards per twelve hours, weighing about 7 tons. The roof is green clay, and the floor is granite or kaolin. The roof-boards are supported by timber frames spaced about two feet apart. The vertical shafts usual in the district are seven feet square, well timbered, and divided into four compartments, two being used for cages, one ascending while the other descends, and the other two for pumping by means of ascending and descending buckets which are filled below by hand. Such a shaft is worked by two "barabans" or drums, each

worked by two horses. (Fig. 6.) In case of a 'small output, one baraban would suffice, pumping being done during intervals when no ore isbeing raised. With such an appliance 50 buckets of water per hour can be raised, each containing 30 gallons, equal to 1,500 gallons per hour. This is a surprising performance considering the primitive nature of the imple

ments.

The Richische ore is hardly developed, but is likely to play an important part, and to be one of the chief centres of production in South Russia. It corresponds, generally speaking, with Caucasian ore, and would very well take

FIG. 6.

and will afford a much cheaper carriage to Alexandrovsk than the present system of barges which yield high profits to the contractors, and will enable transshipping at Alexandrovsk to be dispensed with.

Iron and Steel Works.-Having now described the raw materials, some mention may be made of the blast furnaces and steel works, where the finished article is produced. Appendix I gives a list of the 18 chief iron and steel works in the South, together with various particulars as to capital and nationality. From column 6, it will be noticed that most of these works have been built since 1892, and are therefore quite modern. Column 4 shows that Belgian capital largely preponderates. Although the first works in this district (the New Russia Company) was started in 1869 by an Englishman, Mr. Hughes, very little English capital has flowed in the same direction. It is different with Belgian capital. Since the establishment of the first Belgian company, the Dnieprovienne, or South Russian Company (associated with Messrs. Cockerill, of Seraing, Belgium), there has been a constant influx of Belgian capital. Out of the most important works enumerated, at least eight are partially or entirely Belgian capital, while out of the total number of 55 blast furnaces, 21 are Belgian.

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FIG. 7.

"BARABAN" OR WINDING DRUM AT IVANOVKA MANGANESE MINE.

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its place in the manufacture of ferro-manganese and spiegeleisen. Comparing it with foreign ores, it is superior in manganese contents to New Brunswick ore, but inferior to Brazilian and Spanish ores. The analyses of different Russian and foreign manganese ores are given in Appendix V. The details of the cost of raising and washing Richische ore are given in Appendix VI.

The present outlets for the Nicopol and Richishche ores are :

1. Down the river Dnieper in barges to Kherson for shipment abroad.

2. Up the Dnieper in barges to Alexandrovsk, the head of navigation, where it is put on the railway and despatched to the various Russian centres of consumption, chiefly the blast furnaces situated along the Ekaterine Railway.

The railway now under construction from Nicolo-Koselsk to Alexandrovsk vid Nicopol, which is expected to be running in a year or two, will pass through the Richische group,

DONETZ-URIEVKA BLAST FURNACES.

The author personally visited five of these works, viz. :-Briansk, Donetz-Urievka (Fig. 7), Gdantsevski, Almaznaia (Fig. 8), and Bielaia (Fig. 9), and was much struck by the good, substantial, and well constructed nature of the work. Generally speaking, the structural portions of the works have been built in Russia,

and the machinery in Belgium, Germany, or France, or to a small extent in England and America.

There is, perhaps, an absence of laboursaving appliances in the blast furnaces, notably in the handling of materials between

FIG. 8.

ALMAZNAIA BLAST FURNACES.

the stock piles and the furnace top. But it must be remembered that Russia is different from Western Europe and America, in the scarcity of skilled mechanics for the maintenance of machinery. Mechanical instinct is not a conspicuous quality among Russians, and the care and foresight exercised by those

FIG. 9.

BIELAIA BLAST FURNACES.

in charge of machinery is too often regulated solely by the amount of supervision and discipline to which they are subjected. Consequently there is not only a great liability for machinery to go wrong, but great difficulty in repairing it. If to this be added the

cheapness of

manual labour, there are sufficient reasons for the avoidance as far as possible of all of all complicated machinery. Generally speaking, a proper mean course has been followed between too much mechanism on the one hand and too wasteful an expenditure of labour on the other hand. After making due allowance for these conditions, the design and workmanship of some of the most modern blast furnaces and accessory appliances leaves little to be desired, and bears comparison with some of the best plants in Europe. The personnel are as a rule of the nationality of the owners. Thus in works of Belgian or French capital the director and departmental managers are Belgians or Frenchmen respectively. In Russian works, on the other hand, positions of responsibility are largely occupied by Poles. The workmen are in all cases Russian.

It will be seen that of the eighteen important works in South Russia enumerated in Appendix I, all make pig iron, in a total of 55 blast furnaces, and 11 are steel makers in addition. The works are not concentrated in manufacturing centres, but scattered along the Ekaterine Railway. The whole country is what is known as Steppes, viz., extensive undulating plains, entirely treeless, except by the edges of streams and rivers. Every eminence is crowned by a tumulus, said to have been erected in olden times, either to repel the Tartar invasions or as a burial place for chiefs. The scattered nature of the works and the comparative scantiness of population, as well as the want of enterprise of private builders, makes it necessary for each company, whether mining or metallurgical, to erect colonies for their workpeople, which generally consist of comfortable houses, varying in accommodation from the eight-roomed house, containing four unmarried men per room, to the sumptuous mansion of the director. (Fig. 10.) The rainfall is small, being about II inches per annum, due to the treelessness of the land. This necessitates elaborate and expensive arrangements for water supply at most works. At one blast furnace plant visited by the author, an artificial lake has been made, 97 acres in area, holding 143 million gallons of water, and situated 200 feet below the blast furnaces to which water is pumped in two stages by electrically driven pumps.

Blast Furnaces.- Fig. 11 gives a half profile of a typical modern blast furnace in the Donetz district, such as would be suitable for

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1901, in order to afford some relief to the harassed trade. On account of the heavy import duties pig iron has been imported in but small and decreasing quantities, as follows:-1900, 51,000 tons; 1901, 29,700 tons; 1902, at the rate of 14,520 tons.

The import duty on ferro-manganese and spiegeleisen is £4 19s. per ton, which is sufficient to keep out English-made spiegeleisen, but not sufficient to keep out Englishmade ferro-manganese, which latter can be sold in South Russia at about £2 per ton below market price, and which is sent regularly from England by way of Black Sea ports at the rate of about 4,250 tons per annum. At the present time, spiegeleisen and ferro-manganese are being made in Russia at five of the works enumerated in Appendix I. The import duties on finished steel products are as follows:

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TYPICAL SECTION OF BLAST FURNACE.

panies are obliged to supply a Government mining engineer, and are subject to periodical visits by Government inspectors. The companies are obliged to provide proper accommodation for the operatives in the way of houses, hospitals, churches, &c., and the slightest accident resulting in injury to any workman is the subject of Government inquiry. The employers appear to live in dread of

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The present market prices of finished steel products are:-Rails, £8 5s. per ton; rolled joists, £5 15s. 6d. per ton; merchant iron, £85s.

Railways.-The abnormally large proportion of railway materials indicates that railway construction absorbs about half the steel production of the south. This is due to the fact

that Russia has been, and is still, going through a period of great railway construction, entered upon with a view of developing the resources of her empire, both European and Asiatic. The new mileage opened within the last few years is as follows:

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Since 1899 the Russian Government has gradually bought up private railways, and amalgamated into a few large companies those not so bought up. It has thus got rid of large liabilities for guaranteed dividends, and has turned an annual loss into a profit. Railway concessions are no longer granted on the easy terms which were once obtained.

Owing to the relatively small amount of private enterprise and capital in Russia, the general demand for finished steel and iron products for industrial purposes is small, while exports to foreign countries are negligible. The iron and steel industries, therefore, look to the Government as their chief customer, and are dependent principally on orders from it for railway materials. About 40 per cent. of all the free pig iron (ie., not sold as finished steel) made in the south is purchased by the Government. The prospects of these industries thus depend largely on the programme of railway construction being carried out by the Government at the time, which in turn depends on the funds at its disposal for this purpose. The Government, on the other

hand, has fostered and to a great extent brought into existence the southern iron industries by heavy import duties and by distribution of orders. The general demand for steel from the public has not grown apace with the productive capacity of the works, and, indeed, increases very slowly, while the Government requirements have, until 1900, increased very rapidly. The result is that the south is practically dependent on one large customer, viz., the Government.

Trade Depression. As is well known, Russia has been for the last two or three years passing through a grave commercial crisis which seriously effects all industries, and notably the southern iron industries.

After an unusually active year of railway construction in 1899, the Government, presumably on account of insufficient means, suddenly stopped or almost stopped further expenditure thereon in 1900, while orders for railway building materials underwent a great and sudden decrease, with results which were most keenly felt by the Southern iron industry.

The price of foundry pig iron, which in 1899 had been about £5 5s. per ton, rapidly declined until March and April 1901, when it touched £3 per ton, since which it has recovered somewhat. The cause of the scarcity of money in the State coffers has been variously assigned to the stringency of the money market caused by the Trans

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