New York Paper - Note upon the Cost of Bessemer Steel Rails

Several interesting and important considerations may be based upon an analysis of the cost of producing Bessemer rails, and the facts thus set forth may be much more clearly emphasized by re ducing each item of cost to its own fractional proportion of the sum total in each branch of the manufacture. The estimate given below is not absolutely complete in minute ness of detail, but it may be fairly taken as a basis for the suggestions to be noted : Perhaps the most striking comments that can be made upon this statement are those arising from a consideration of some of the smaller items, and even the least of these quite loses its insignificance when its proportion of the whole is expressed in actual money, as for the work of a year, or even for a single day. Thus, if the item as be considered, the importance can be clearly