5 8z THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which, without such a leaven of stimulus, would probably never be 

 undertaken. The so-called cycles of inflation and depression have 

 also undoubtedly in recent years become more frequent and intense, 

 because the instrumentalities of production and distribution work more 

 rapidly in effecting results than at any former period. 



One universally recognized and, to some persons, perplexing pe- 

 culiarity of the recent long-continued depression in trade is, the cir- 

 cumstance that while profits have been so largely reduced that, as 

 the common expression goes, "it has not paid to do business," the 

 volume of trade throughout the world has not contracted, but, meas- 

 ured by quantities rather than by values, has in many departments no- 

 tably increased. The following are some of the more notable exam- 

 ples of the evidence that can be offered in confirmation of this state- 

 ment : 



The years 1879, 1880, and 1881, for the United States Avere years 

 of abundant crops and great foreign demand, and are geuerally ac- 

 knowledged to have been prosperous ; while the years 1882, 1883, and 



1884 are regarded as having been years of extreme depression and 

 reaction. And yet the movement of railroad freights throughout the 

 country greatly increased during this latter as compared with the for- 

 mer period ; the tonnage carried by six railroads centering at Chi- 

 cago in 1884 having been nearly thirty-three per cent greater than 

 in 1881 ; and the tonnage carried one mile by all the railroads of the 

 United States in 1884 a year of extreme depression having been 

 5,000,000,000 in excess of that carried in 1882 ; and this, notwith- 

 standing there was a great falling off, in 1884, in the carriage of ma- 

 terial for new railroad construction. Again, the foreign commerce of 

 the United States, measured in dollars, largely declined during the 

 same later period ; but, measured in quantities, there was but little de- 

 crease, and in the case of not a few leading articles a notable increase. 

 Thus, for the year 1885, the total value of the foreign commerce of 

 the country in merchandise was $93,251,921 less than in the preceding 

 year (1881), but of this decrease $90,170,304, according to the esti- 

 mates of the United States Bureau of Statistics, represented a decline 

 in price. An export of 70,000,000 bushels of wheat from the United 

 States in 1884 returned $75,000,000 ; while an export of 84,500,000 in 



1885 gave less than $73,000,000. An export of 389,000,000 pounds of 

 bacon and hams in 1884 brought in nearly $40,000,000 ; but shipments 

 of 400,000,000 pounds in 1885 returned but $37,000,000, or an increase 

 of foreign sales of about 11,000,000 pounds was accompanied by a de- 

 cline of about $3,000,000 in price. In 1884 the United States paid 

 about $50,000,000 for 535,000,000 pounds of imported coffee ; in 1885 

 it imported 573,000,000 pounds for $47,000,000. In 1877, 216,287,891 

 gallons of exported petroleum were valued at $44,209,360 ; but in 1886, 

 303,911,698 gallons (or 87,623,000 gallons more) were valued at only 

 $24,685,767, a decline in value of $19,683,000. But the most remarkable 



