employed in the same period.

During the last six months of the year 1891 and the first six months
of 1892 the total production of pig iron was 9,710,819 tons, as against
9,202,703 tons in the year 1890, which was the largest annual production
ever attained. For the same twelve months of 1891-92 the production of
Bessemer ingots was 3,878,581 tons, an increase of 189,710 gross tons
over the previously unprecedented yearly production of 3,688,871 gross
tons in 1890. The production of Bessemer steel rails for the first six
months of 1892 was 772,436 gross tons, as against 702,080 gross tons
during the last six months of the year 1891.

The total value of our foreign trade (exports and imports of
merchandise) during the last fiscal year was $1,857,680,610, an increase
of $128,283,604 over the previous fiscal year. The average annual value
of our imports and exports of merchandise for the ten fiscal years prior
to 1891 was $1,457,322,019. It will be observed that our foreign trade
for 1892 exceeded this annual average value by $400,358,591, an increase
of 27.47 Per cent. The significance and value of this increase are shown
by the fact that the excess in the trade of 1892 over 1891 was wholly in
the value of exports, for there was a decrease in the value of imports
of $17,513,754.

The value of our exports during the fiscal year 1892 reached the highest
figure in the history of the Government, amounting to $1,030,278,148,
exceeding by $145,797,338 the exports of 1891 and exceeding the value of
the imports by $202,875,686. A comparison of the value of our exports
for 1892 with the annual average for the ten years prior to 1891 shows
an excess of $265,142,651, or of 34.65 per cent. The value of our
imports of merchandise for 1892, which was $829,402,462, also exceeded
the annual average value of the ten years prior to 1891 by $135,215,940.
During the fiscal year 1892 the value of imports free of duty amounted
to $457,999,658, the largest aggregate in the history of our commerce.
The value of the imports of merchandise entered free of duty in 1892 was
55.35 per cent of the total value of imports, as compared with 43.35 per
cent in 1891 and 33.66 per cent in 1890.

In our coastwise trade a most encouraging development is in progress,
there having been in the last four years an increase of 16 per cent. In
internal commerce the statistics show that no such period of prosperity
has ever before existed. The freight carried in th