610 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



GENERAL ANALYSIS OF TOTAL IRON AND STEEL PRO- 

 DUCTION. 



The following analytical statement of production in net 

 tons of -the various branches of the iron and steel industries, 

 similar to that presented in previous volumes of the liecord, 

 brings down the statistical figures showing the condition of 

 these industries to January 1, 1878 as near to the present as 

 we may come with accuracy. For these figures, as for many 

 others, we are indebted to the painstaking work of Mr. 

 Swank, the secretary of the American Iron and Steel Asso- 

 ciation. The figures, it will be observed, indicate a moderate 

 increase in the production of pig-iron as compared with that 

 of the previous year (1876), a continued, though not large, 

 diminution in the production of rolled iron, a considerable 

 faliing-off in the production of iron rails, and an increase in 

 steel products of all kinds, although the increase in the pro- 

 duction of Bessemer metal is not so pronounced as during 

 several previous years. In the figures for all rolled iron 

 Bessemer rails have been excluded. 



To the foregoing we are enabled to add, on the authority 

 of Messrs. Richmond & Potts, the American agents for Sie- 



