It is well known that charcoal is the best of all fuels for making iron, because of its freedom from damaging impurities. Its expensiveness generally prevents its being much used now, but here the cost need not exceed five cents per bushel, and 100 to 120 bushels would suffice for a ton of iron. The only question concerning the charcoal made from fir timber is as to its ability to bear the burden in a tall stack. It is becoming common now to utilize the by-products of wood, formed during its conversion into charcoal, by a process which makes the charcoal stronger. But all difficulty on this point can be relieved by conforming the size of the furnace-stack to the strength of the charcoal. This is the only fuel which has ever been used on the Pacific coast for the smelting of iron ores. These enterprises have not been particularly successful thus far, rather because of the inferior quality of the ore, than from any defect in the fuel. The bog ore and the limonites which were used at Irondale, near the Canada line, and at Oswego on the Willamette, were generally low in iron and high in phosphorus, and the bog ores were soon exhausted. [Sidenote: Quantity of charcoal to the ton of iron.] At Irondale, near Port Townsend, recourse has been had to a refractory ore obtained on Texada Island, in Victoria Sound, on which a duty of seventy-five cents a ton has to be paid, and which requires a large amount of fuel for smelting it, perhaps as much as 150 bushels of charcoal. But Mr. H. T. Blanchard, who is interested in the Irondale Works, says in a late letter (November 29, 1887): "It is perfectly safe to rate charcoal at six cents per bushel, and the quantity necessary to make a ton of pig-metal not to exceed 120 bushels, with a good chance of getting it down to ninety bushels per ton with fair ores." [Sidenote: Bessemer ores commonly distant from fuel.] The iron ores of the Cascade Mountains will be taken to some extent to mix with the inferior ores near the coast, but they will be chiefly worked into Bessemer-pig and steel rails. Steel-making ores are not common anywhere, and are widely separated from fuel, which makes them very costly in the States east of the Rocky Mountains. This well-known fact is alluded to by Mr. Swank, in his report on the Iron Trade of 1886, in the following words: "It is also a fact worthy of notice, for which geologists may find a reason, that nowhere in this country are our best steel-making ores found in proximity to mineral fuel, either anthracite or bituminous, while in some parts of the Lake Superior region, even timber suitable for the manufacture of charcoal is almost wholly wanting." [Sidenote: High cost of Lake Superior ores.]