A GREAT IRON WORKS.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Issue 3465, 10 December 1915, Page 1

A GREAT IRON WORKS.

A NEW ZEALANDER'S VISIT.

..Mr; Herbert Babbage, an old Hawera boy, and a well-known artist, who is at present in' England, has discarded the brush and palette for the instruments of war. When the- last mail left he was guarding a. tunnel on the Great Western line at Old Sodbury, near Bristol.. By a strange coincidence, this happens to be a tunnel of which his grandfather was en-. gineer, under Sir Isonband Brunnel. Mr. C. W. Babbage, of Wanganui, has received the following interesting letter from his son by the last mail:-— "I have just got in, having had a most interesting afternoon at the Dowlas steel and iron works. Lieut. Oliver and I went up. One' can get over most places, so we went to the office and the head foreman took as all over at Jeast the interesting.parts. It is a huge place, and the largest in England, having 3000 in their own mines, and a couple of thousand in the works. They turn out Bessemer steel, in fact, all grades, and showed us the very best for shells. We first saw great ingots of white hot steel, sft by 2ft hpisted out of holes in the floor and forced on to rollers. The machinery seemed almost human, as great steeLarms seized it and shoved it between great rollers. Each time it came back a little longer, and the arms seized it, turned it over, and passed it between narrower rollers, until it was a 20ft long steel bar' about 6in diameter. We also saw some long rods of 30ft roiled out of smaller ingots of white hot metal. The place was very hot, as we constantly passed great masses cooling, or trams rushing by with cars filled with molten metal. We at last came to the retorts and blast furnaces—a wilderness of these gigantic things 100 ft or more high. The foreman took us to the top of one. in a lift. It was rather uncanny • to think one . was standing over the top of a large fur-, nace, with tons of molten metal below, The top was circular, 30 feet or more"* level floor, with a circular hole Bft across and 4ft down a domed metal cap. They tipped in many truckloads of coke, a handle- was turned, and the cap sank down^and away shot the coke' into the roaring furnace below. Then truck loads of limestone were shot in, and then the iron ore, and so on. The foreman said it melted, or fused, as fast as they could tip it in. Another retort, more, modern, was worked with half the men, elec-' trie hoists whisking up the material. He then took us into the engine-room for creating the draught.-There were six- gigantic engines with six 'fly wheels each 20ft in diameter, weighing 30 tons each, and there was hardly a sound. Our time was getting short, so he said, 'We'll let off some molten metal for you to • see.' One hole was made, and out poured a river of- slag, and six men with 15ft iron rods opened a lower sort of door, and out rushed a river of dazzling iron. It flowed down a trough made in the sand, and fell Bft in a cascade into a car in the form of a great steel tub. In five minutes it was full, 25 tons of it. Instantly a branch trough was opened and the first cvt 1 off and fresh tubs filled. An engine steamed up and coupled on and off the fiery mass went to other parts of .the works. One saw such a lot'in the-couple of hours one could hardly take it all in, much less put it down on paper. He did tell us how many tons they melted a day, but have forgotten exactly —well over four figures!"