eel Department of Cambria Iron Company."

Description of the Works.

The blast furnaces, steel works and rolling mills of the company are
situated upon what was originally a river flat, where the valley of the
Conemaugh expanded somewhat just below the borough of Johnstown, and now
forming part of Millville Borough. The arrangement of the works has been
necessarily governed by the fact that they have gradually expanded from
the original rolling-mill and four old style blast furnaces to their
present character and capacity of which some idea may be obtained by the
condensed description given below.

The Johnstown furnaces, Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4, form one complete plant,
with stacks seventy-five feet high, sixteen feet diameter of bosh. Steam
is generated in forty boilers, fired by furnace gas, for eight vertical
direct-acting blowing engines. Nos. 5 and 6 blast furnaces form together
a second plant with stacks seventy-five feet high, nineteen feet
diameter of bosh. No. 5 has iron hot blast stoves and No. 6 has four
Whitwell fire-brick hot blast stoves. The furnaces have together six
blowing engines exactly like those at Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 furnaces. The
engines are supplied with steam by thirty-two cylinder boilers.

Marvelous Machinery.

The Bessemer plant was the sixth started in the United States (July,
1871). The main building is 102 feet in width by 165 feet in length. The
cupolas are six in number. Blast is supplied from eight Baker rotary
pressure blowers driven by engines sixteen inches by twenty-four inches,
at 110 revolutions per minute. The cupolas are located on either side of
the main trough, into which they are tapped, and down which the melted
metal is directed into a ten-ton ladle set on a hydraulic weighing
platform, where it is stored until the converters are ready to receive
it. There are two vessels of eight and a half tons capacity each, the
products being distributed by a hydraulic ladle crane. The vessels are
blown by three engines. The Bessemer works are supplied with steam by a
battery of twenty-one tubular boilers.

The best average, although not the very highest work done in the
Bessemer department is 103 heats of eight and a half tons each for
twenty-four hours. The best weekly record reached 1,847 tons of ingots,
the best monthly record of 20,304 tons, and the best daily output, 900
tons ingots. All grades of steel are made in the converters from the
softest wire and bridge stock to spr