Page:Japan by the Japanese (1904).djvu/477
Three kinds of motive power are used in the Works—viz., steam, electric, and hydraulic power. With the sole exception of locomotives, steam power is produced in steam boilers, fired with waste gas from blast-furnaces and coke ovens. But while electric power furnishes about 1,500 horse-power and hydraulic power 200 horse-power, there are fifty-two steam-boilers of about 10,000 horse-power altogether, the number of steam-engines being twenty-four, of 31,200 horse-power on the whole.
The offices and the different workshops are lighted interiorly and exteriorly by electric light, about 120 arc and 1,000 incandescent lamps being employed for the purpose.
Three coal-mines lying close to one another in Kahogori, Chikuzen—namely, Takao, Igisu, and Uruno, have been purchased by the Works, together with two iron-mines, known as Akadani and Kano, in Kambara-gori, Echigo. Works have already been started in the Akadani Mine, and will be completed in the course of the present year. It is expected to get an annual output of 100,000 tons, the total amount of hematite iron ore in sight being estimated at 3,800,000 tons approximately. Besides the above, the Works have concluded a contract with the Hang-Yang Iron-Works for the supply of ore from their mines in Taya, Hupeh, China, to the amount of 5,000 to 7,000 tons per annum.
The products of the Works are Bessemer and open-hearth steel. The raw material mostly consumed is magnetite and hematite, besides a much smaller quantity of limonite. Those ores are obtained partly from mines belonging to the Works, partly from other mines in Japan, and partly also from China. Coal is furnished by fields belonging to the Works, as well as by such in private possession, all fields being within 30 English miles of the Works, and connected with them by railway-lines.
The pig-iron department consists firstly of a coke oven and coal-washing plant, the latter having a capacity of 1,200 tons per 24 hours; secondly, the blast-furnace plant, supplied with ore and flux-bins, roasting-furnaces, blast-furnaces, hot stoves (8), Lancashire boilers (24), blowing-engines (4), casting-shed, condensers, cooling towers, electric cranes, and hoists, etc. The steel department is divided into four sections—viz., mixer plant, Bessemer plant, open-hearth plant, and steel-foundry. The rolling-mill department is very extensive, occupying no less than thirteen buildings, and, like every other section of the Works, is fitted with the most up-to-date appliances and plant. The iron foundry, repair shop, smithy, pattern shop, boiler-house, chemical and mechanical laboratory, inspection bureau, and general offices are also housed in large and substantial structures. According to the elaborate inquiries made