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Vigo Blast Furnace: A lithograph of this furnace is
here given. It was built at Terre Haute by the Vigo Iron Company, and
went into blast in the fall of 1870. A. L. Crawford is President, and A.
J. Crawford is Secretary and Treasurer of the company. Raw block coal,
obtained from the company's mines on the branch road south of Brazil, in
Clay county, is the fuel used. The ores are from Iron Mountain and
Merrimac. I am informed, by a letter from the company, that the stack is
fifty feet high, open topped, twelve feet across the boshes, six feet in
diameter at the hearth, and six feet across at the tunnel head; has seven
tuyeres with three inch nozzles; temperature of the blast, 750° F.;
pressure, two and a half to three pounds; stoves for heating the blast are
after the plan of Thomas Over. The pipes for carrying off the waste heat
are thirty inches in diameter. The blowing cylinder is six feet in
diameter, and four feet stroke. The make is twenty-four tons of
mill-iron per day, and no effort is made to produce any other grade of
iron. Forty-eight hundred pounds of coal are used per ton of metal
made. This is a first class furnace, and has been successfully managed.
However, it is my opinion that, with a closed top, the consumption of
coal, already small, would be materially reduced.
1870 Table of Contents
Geology Library, Indiana University,
Bloomington