one thought that very low grade ore
(20% magnetite content the ore) could economically
processed. 24
"intoxicated" with the profit potential ore milling.VI-21
convinced that could make enormous profits processing low
grade ore. Edison believed that the economies large scale
. Those close him noted that had become
. The historian Harold
Passer's description Edison "conservative defender of
the status quo" does not fit his activities during the 1890s?
instead see courageous inventor and reckless industrialist
who went against the conventional wisdom the iron industry
and poured money "like water" into revolutionary
25
technology. The originality Edison's idea was the sheer scale in
which intended extract usable iron out the ore and his
grandiose plan revolutionize the entire iron and steel
industry with it. The
comparative advantage laboratory built for flexibility and
speed was that could move quickly into profitable new
ventures soon they were identified, and 1889 Edison
shifted his resources into ore milling.
Edison was not the only entrepreneur-inventor trying to
magnetically separate iron from low grade ore for there were
several other devices the experimental pilot project
stage. argued that mining profits came not from
the richness the ore (the prevailing business strategy of
the mining industry), but from the highly efficient processing
of great amounts ore
