Page:James Hudson Maurer - The Far East (1912).pdf/55

 think can do.' 'It is not that they want to do bad work; it's more because they don't fully understand the necessity for such things as headers to make a strong wall,' said the engineer who told me this.

"Fabulous stories are told of the coal and iron deposits of China. If these are but one half true one day the entire world will be drawing its supplies of both from China. Japan is even now at the mercy of China as regards her iron ores.

"The steel works at Hankow gets most of its ore from a visitable mountain of solid ore near the YagtseYangtse [sic] river. This body of ore is over six hundred feet high; the ore is a hematite, containing 65 per cent. of iron and is just quarried out of the hill. There are known to be many other deposits even greater than this.

"There are many ancient little furnaces in operation near these ore fields. These are queer little affairs, using half-charred wood as fuel and making about two tons of iron per day. The brick work is supported on bamboo columns, the blast of air is supplied by donkey power; the ore and fuel is carried in baskets. The stock hoist is unique: the stockman places his baskets on a little platform, then he ascends the ladder to the top and by his weight lifts the load. When the load reaches the top he is at the bottom. He goes up again, empties his baskets and repeats the process.

"The Chinese cast cooking pots from this iron that are remarkable things. Many that we saw were no thicker than No. 18 guage, and some large ones about 18 inches in diameter and 8 inches deep were not one-sixteenth of an inch thick yet they were perfect castings.

"It is an interesting thing to see these pots repaired with molten iron on the streets by traveling tinkers. He has a little furnace about eight inches in diameter and ten inches high, with a little blast pipe at the bottom through which air is forced from a small cylindrical hand bellows. The fuel is charcoal mixed with anthracite coal.

"His clay crucible, about half the size of a tea cup, is filled with iron and in a few minutes is melted. When the pot is cracked he carefully breaks out bits of iron till there is a small hole all along the line of the crack. A bit of cloth that covers about one-half of his hand has a thin layer of ashes from his furnace smoothed over it. He row with an iron spoon dips out a bit of the molten iron from the crucible and pours it out on the ash-covered cloth in his hand. The metal appears like a small yellow hot marble. He now carefully places