ing steel. All the special stock,
that is other than rails, is carefully analyzed by heats, and the
physical properties are determined by a tension test.

Ponderous Steam-Hammers.

The open hearth building, 120 feet in width by 155 feet in length,
contains three Pernot revolving hearth furnaces of fifteen tons capacity
each, supplied with natural gas. A separate pit with a hydraulic ladle
crane of twenty tons capacity is located in front of each pan. In a
portion of the mill building, originally used as a puddle mill, is
located the bolt and nut works, wherein are made track bolts and machine
bolts. This department is equipped with bolt-heading and nut making
machines, cutting, tapping and facing machines, and produces about one
thousand kegs of finished track bolts, of 200 pounds each, per month,
besides machine bolts. Near this, also, are located the axle and forging
shops, in the old puddle mill building. The axle shop has three steam
hammers to forge and ten machines to cut off, centre and turn axles. The
capacity of this shop is 100 finished steel axles per day. All axles are
toughened and annealed by a patented process, giving the strongest axle
possible. In the forging plant, located in the same building, there is
an 18,000 pound Bement hammer, and a ten-ton traveling crane to convey
forgings from the furnaces to the hammer. There are two furnaces for
heating large ingots and blooms for forgings.

A ventilating fan supplies fresh air to the mills through pipes located
overhead, and having outlets near the heating furnaces. One hundred
thousand cubic feet of fresh air per minute is distributed throughout
the mills. The mill has in addition to its boilers, over the
heating-furnaces, a brick and iron building, located near the rail mill,
205 feet long and 45 feet wide, containing twenty-four tubular boilers,
aggregating about 2000 horse-power.

Tons of Barbed Wire.

The "Gautier Steel Department" consists of a brick building 200 feet by
500 feet, where the wire is annealed, drawn and finished; a brick
warehouse 373 feet by 43 feet; many shops, offices, etc.; the barb wire
mill, 50 feet by 256 feet, where the celebrated Cambria Link barb wire
is made; and the main merchant mill, 725 feet by 250 feet. These mills
produce wire, shafting, springs, plowshare, rake and harrow teeth and
other kinds of agricultural implement steel. In 1887 they produced
50,000 tons of this material, which was marketed mainly in the