History Of Iron Ore

Our science books are full of successful inventionscontinued his work on the phonograph and motion
of Thomas Edison like electricity, phonograph andpictures etc.
many others, but there is hardly any mentionIt was a challenging task for both Edison and the
about his failures. One of his most peculiar failuresAmerican economy to find an economic way to
was his lack of ability to find an effective way toproduce steel at cheaper rates. After 1840 the
excavate iron ore.American iron industry was going thru a
If he had been successful in excavating iron ore,resurgence as American was not one of the
he would have been a billionaire at that time andmajor steel producer in the world.
the possibilities that would have been generatedIn 1844, government surveyors traced huge
after excavation like creation of millions of jobs,deposits of iron ore of anthracite in the Great
and many other inventions.Lakes area. After this Pennsylvania became
Iron is the most economical of all the metalsknown as America's largest supplier of iron and
available for mining, and yet at the same time issteel.
of no use in its pure form. Pure Iron is veryA British engineer named Henry Bessemer
delicate and cannot be used to manufacture anyinvented a process for steel extraction process.
products. It is silver in color in its pure form. ItsHe accomplished the incomplete task of Thomas
gets its gray color after it is combined withEdison. He devised an iron smelting process thur
oxygen. Iron can not be put any practicalwhich it was feasible to produce large quantities
application in its pure form.of steel. This process is still used by some
Hence it was important that an effectivemanufacturers even today.
extraction process was discovered. For ten years,His invention was quite inexpensive and provided
from 1880 to 1890, Edison carried out manyan efficient process to produce steel from iron
experiments, hired the services of scientists, toore. But still a refined process was invented by
find a novel way to extract iron ore. He wasAbram S. Hewitt who even improved on
doing this to extract iron ore for the PennsylvaniaBessemer process of Andrew Carnegie. He soon
steel mills.became a steel tycoon that by his improved
He shifted from his comfortable office to work inprocess of developing the open-hearth converter
the old iron mines to look for an economical wayand his process was preferred over that of
to meet with the growing demand of steel . HisBessemer by American steel manufacturers.
experiments of testing and processing wereThe American steel industry was revolutionised
getting very expensive and he had to sell all hiswith the invention of low cost steel production.
stock in General Electric to fund his invention. HisAmerican Industry was now the leader in the
heirs must be regretting his decision even today.world in steel production. In 1873 alone, America
Edison could not succeed to extract the iron fromproduced nearly 115,000 tons of steel. It was now
unusable, low grade ores. He had to finallypossible to use steel in many industries because
abandon this project. He could never recover hisof fall in its prices.
money that he had put in this project. Later onAutomotive industry in America is the major
however, he a earned lot of money after he(nearly 70%) user of finished steel in America.