A CITY OF STEEL.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 115, 17 May 1909, Page 7

A CITY OF STEEL.

VISIT TO KRUPP'S GREAT WORKS. EXPANSION EXTRAORDINARY. The eyes of all Englishmen are today (remarked a writer in the London Daily Chronicle on 26th March) riveted upon Krupp's, the great works where the new monster guns and the speciallyhardened armour for the German Dreadnoughts are being turned out with such unprecedented speed. In the last few years the expansion in the productive powers of this famous firm has been something extraordinary, and almost unintelligible to those who do not know how fast Germany is going ahead in every direction. According to Mr. A. Lee, M.P., during the last twelve months no fewer than 38,000 men havo been added to the firm's employees, and this at a time when British artisans were being dismissed wholesale from the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich. Even those who challenge Mr. Lee's statement admit that the additions to the staff of Krupp's have been at least 20,000 men. The great Krupp Company makes everything of steel or metal, and owns enormous works in every part of Germany. At Kiel it has in the Germania Yard one of the best and most up-to-date shipbuilding establishments. Here it can make engines, boilers, and all the component parts of a warship except the armour and armament. It has eight slips, of which four are large enough to accommodate vessels 500 ft long, and it has declared its capacity to lay down two Dreadnoughts each year, and to complete them for sea /in from two to three years. The home and centre of the firm is at Essen, the grim industrial city of Westphalia. A HIVE OF INDUSTRY. As you draw near the City of Steel a forest of tall chimneys shows, and a multitude of towering workshops which stand like giants round the habitations of men. The dull boom of heavy guns fills the air with its concussion, for tests are always in progress, and the sound of the firing at times suggests that a veritable battle is in progress. In the town or round it stand some sixty factories or separate departments, linked together by fifty miles of standard railway, while there are forty miles of narrow gauge line running through the shops. The gates of the factories stand open. But those who attempt to enter will find admission one of the most difficult things to obtain. The works and their many secrets are most jealously guarded. Double sentries are posted at each door, and relentlessly they turn back any person not provided with Krupp's passport. The gui). factories dwarf everthing at, Woolwich by the vaatness of their scale. Here guns are turned out at the rate of a thousand a year, from the largest weapon for the new Dreadnought to small field-pieces and naval quick-firing guns. In the last fifty years Krupp's have produced no fewer than 50,000 cannon. The firm makes for the' world as yvell as for Germany. The secret of its success lies in the special quality of its steel. A century ago Peter Friedrich Krupp experimented, face to faue with poverty and disap- | pointment, in the casting of "large ' blocks of steel. He found out how to make steel in small quantities with the i-rucible. He never mastered the secret of pasting large blocks. His son Alfred nt his death tiok up the woik with German patience and perseverance, and after many years solved the great problem. From the brains and energy of those two men has sprung the establishment which to-day employs At least . 60,000 workmen &ni £000 officials.

BATTLE WITH FORTUNE. Herr Krupp had to encounter many disappointments. So far back as the middie oi la&t century, he was eager to make cannon of oast steel, but could discover no one with faith enough in the new material — for steel was then new and untried —to provide the money. Incidentally he made great ' inventions which brought him a colossal fortune. He devised a new iron roller; he invented a process for turning out weldless tyres for railway wheels. With the money thut> secured he continued his experiments, and in the 'seventies the German Government adopted his steel gun. Other Powers followed fuit, r.nd the prestige of Krupp's was established. The famous steel for the guns is cast as follows — and no sight makes more impression: Round the foundry are laige crucibles of clay, heated in furnaces .which melt tho steel. In* the centre of the foundry <s the ingot mould eet in thefloor. When the metal has reached the right temperature a signal is given. Some fifty men march in, with a greybeard at their head, and assemble round the mould. They are all picked men, who have the secret of the peculiar manipulation. Another signal is given; the furnace doors fly open ; the men march in pairs to the doors, each pair with long steel tongs. With these they lift a crucible full of molten steel. Then, in steady procession, they march to the mould, bearing the white hot clay vessels ; pour into it, one after the other, their loads ; retire, and return with fresh crucibles, while the greybeard directs them with a wand. The progress -made in casting this steel in blocks can be understood when it is stated that an ingot of 40001b weight, shown by Krupp's at the London Exhibition of 1851, astonished the world, whereas now ingots of 100 tons weight are made with certainty. It is from sued ingots or smaller ones that the German naval guns are forged. Krupp's have never believed in the British 'system of wire-wound guns, especially for the long weapons of the present day. SIX THOUSAND SEPARATE MACHINES. The immensity of the Essen works can best be understood from a few figures. There are sixty departments with 6000 separate machines, seventy hydraulic presses, 400 steam boilers, 500 electric motors, 650 cranes, fifty .locomotives, and 2500 railway cars for the firm's own railway system. For communication between the various departments there are forty telegraph stations and fifty miles of wire, and 400 telephone stations, with 250 miles of wirb. The armour made by Knipp has long been famous. Fifteen years ago the firm discovered the new process of hardening steel which is loiown by their name. Steel is hardened under royalty by the samo process in England and in other countries, but until recently the results obtained were not equnl to Krupp's. The reason was finally discovered to lie in this — that the Krupp ores contained the rare metal vanadium, which imparts enormous strength and resisting power to armour. Impenetrable secrecy is the dominant feature of this City of 'Steel. The workers who are engaged on Government orders do not talk, and few know outside the Krupp works and the German Marine Department whether the new monster guns being made for Germany's new monster ships are of llin, 12in, or 13in calibre, for all three calibres are said to be under construction.