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not be very much less than the danger from other sources. I remember a great many years ago an engineer of a Canadian Railroad reported that they excluded their best timber from ties; they refused to use cedar. The reason for it was that they wanted harder wood. He said that it was true if you were comparing cedar with the timbers they were using, it was not half as good the first year; it was, perhaps, a little more than half as good the second year; the third year it would be three-quarters as good, the fourth year it would be as good, and by-and-bye, long after the other timber had gone entirely, it would be about as good as the other timber was in the fifth year. Now, there is a great deal in that idea, and possibly these trees that Mr. Noble has spoken of might occupy a corresponding rank.

Mr. Noble: The timber I referred to is the maquengue palm; a maquengue palm a foot in diameter would have an exceedingly hard shell of perhaps three-quarters of an inch to an inch thick, and then the character changes very suddenly to pith. The outer timber is very strong and durable. I have never seen the palmetto in use, so I can not have an idea of the comparative merits of the two timbers. I should think that for crib work with no great weight, to keep the mud out of the excavations for embankments, that perhaps that timber might be used. There is almost any amount of timber there that can be used for very temporary purposes. I should think it quite likely the palm might resist the teredo, the fiber is so exceedingly hard and tough. Mr. Morison: The teredo seems to object to a pith. He works in wood, but does not want an endogenous wood.

Mr. Noble: The teredo, I believe, does not attack the grain of some hard woods to any extent, the green heart, for example, partly, I understand, on account of its hardness, and if that is true, it is quite likely that some use could be made of the palm.

XXVI.

THE SOUTH WORKS OF THE ILLINOIS STEEL COMPANY.

By VICTOR WINDETT, Mem. W. S. E.

(Read February 16, 1898.)

The North Chicago Rolling Mill Company, operating steel and iron works on the North Side in Chicago, and in Milwaukee, under the stimulus of high prices and an eager market, in 1879 sought a location for new works. On account of the advantageous situation for receiving and shipping by lake and rail, land on the north banks of the Calumet river, at its mouth, was chosen. At that time, the river was navigable at the site for vessels of moderate draught, and rail communication was secured by connection to five railways. Four blast furnaces 21' x 75' were erected and blown in 1880. A Bessemer steel mill and rail mill followed in 1882. In the early part of 1889 the North Chicago Rolling Mill Company and the Union Steel Company united, and purchasing the plant of the Joliet Steel Company, formed the Illinois Steel Compay.

It was at once decided to enlarge the South Works. Four new blast furnaces with the attending yards and North Slip were built, the rail mill was torn out and rebuilt and the Bessemer mill remodeled. The former machinery was a 26" 2 high train. This was torn out to give way to a 27" 3 high mill with new engines. In addition, a new rail finishing building 150' x 360' was built. These changes it was expected would result in an output of 50,000 tons of ingots and 40,000 tons of rails per month. The original plat of ground was 74-1⁄2 acres of sand beach, and rising but little above the lake. This has grown (see Fig. 333) to about 260 acres, at an elevation of six and a half to sixteen feet above the lake, giving adequate drainage for fly-wheel pits and regenerator chambers and flues.

Today communication in the works is secured by the use of 36 miles of standard and 61⁄2 miles 3'-0 gauge tracks. The standard gauge system is operated by the Chicago, Lake Shore & Eastern railway, of which the steel company is a stockholder. This railway operates other yards and trackage, giving communication with all railroads of Chicago, and over leased lines with the coal and limestone regions of Illinois and Indiana and the Joliet works of the company. The locomotives of the road vary in size and weight from eight wheelers of 230,000 pounds weight and 19" x 26" cylinders to four wheelers without trailing trucks of 16,000 pounds weight and 9" X 16" cylinders.

Marine shipments are handled at the docks of the South Slip, running into the plant from the Calumet river, and the North

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FIG. 334. South Slip. Unloading Ore Vessel.

Slip opening into Lake Michigan with a protected entrance. The South Slip is 1,000 feet long and 96 feet wide. East of the South Slip are the ore yards for blast furnaces Nos. I to 4. Ore vessels are unloaded at the South Slip (Figs. 334 and 335) as follows: Buckets cylindrical in shape, 30" diameter and 24" high, holding 850 pounds of ore, hung below the center of gravity of the bucket by a bail and locked upright, when lifting, are placed in each hatch of a vessel. When filled, a bucket is hooked on to a pulley suspended from two swinging booms pivoted to the dock at the land ends and fastened together at the swinging end, where a sheave is placed over which the bucket rope runs. When a filled bucket in each vessel hatch is attached to the hoist, the hoist-engine man, on receiving a signal, starts the hoisting engine which is placed on the dock and the booms are simultaneously raised to a vertical position, while the bucket rope being partially hauled in at the same time brings the bucket up between the legs of the boom, where it is caught by two men standing on a platform 20 feet above the ground level. These men arrest the swing of the bucket, and on one pulling a latch, the bucket turns over and dumps in a hand push-car holding two tons. The empty buckets are then lowered into the hold of the vessel, detached, and another filled bucket is hooked on for a hoist. When the receiving car is filled, it is pushed on an elevated track to the desired portion of the ore yard and dumped with a sidewise motion. This method of handling requires men for each vessel hatch, as follows: Seven ore shovelers in the hold, two men on top to dump buckets, four car pushers. The buckets used are four and two push cars per hatch.

There are fifty-three of these hoists, so placed that three of the largest size of vessels or four small ones may be unloaded at the same time. When discharging into cars standing on the dock, a

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CHIPPING ROOM, FOUNDRY
SHELTER HOUSE, PIG IRON YARD.
SHELTER HOUSE, PIG IRON YARD
OFFICE, NORTH OF OPEN HEARTH
CEMENT STORE HOUSE
SCALES HOUSE FOR TEAMS
WATCHMAN'S OFFICE, NORTH END

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