This statement, showing our steam tonnage registered for foreign trade to be 6,000 tons less in 1885 than in 1870, is not an encouraging one, especially when taken in connection with the fact that our tonnage in foreign trade has steadily lessened, and the percentage of our imports carried in American vessels has dwindled from 75.2 per cent. in 1856 to 66.5 in 1860; to 35.6 per cent. in 1870; and to 12.29 per cent. in 1890. Even during the civil war it never fell below 27.5 per cent.

The amount of steam tonnage built in the United States and in Great Britain at intervals of five years from 1855 is as follows:

Years.United States.
Number.Tonnage.Average
tonnage.
Gross tons.
185524672,760296
186027569,370259
1865411145,696356
187029070,621244
187532362,460193
188034878,853229
188533884,333249
1890410159,045
Years.United Kingdom.
Number.Tonnage.Average
tonnage.
Net tons.
1855278106,872385
186023467,699289
1865453211,665467
1870512267,896523
1875428226,701530
1880629414,831660
1885487221,918456
Gross tons.
18906321,076,220[7]1,700

The startling steam tonnage of 1883 (nearly three-quarters of a million tons) built in Great Britain, of which 134,785 were built at Glasgow, 125,870 at the Tyne ports, and 117,776[8] at Sunderland, was followed by a great depression. In 1884 but a little over half that of the preceding year was built (415,095 tons); and in 1885 this was again almost halved, the output falling to only 221,918 tons, and the average size also falling off from 724 tons in 1883 to 456 in 1885. But in the last five years Great Britain has moved forward with a constantly accelerated pace, culminating in the vast figures of 1890, when she put afloat over 80 per cent. of the world’s production for the year.

Nearly or, practically, quite all of the vast fleet represented by these figures are of iron or steel; the tonnage of the wooden steamers generally falling in later years in Great Britain to a total of 1,000 tons or less, and this made up of vessels averaging not more than 30 tons each.

The City of Rome.

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Steel may be said to have almost supplanted iron as a material; in 1880 but 10 per cent. of British steam vessels were built of this, as against 90 per cent. of iron; in 1890 but 4 per cent. were of the latter metal. There is, however, a tendency on the part of some owners to return to iron as less liable to the pitting caused by the galvanic action arising from want of homogeneity in the steel; a vessel’s bottom, unless well guarded by protective compositions, being frequently severely corroded, generally in small pits the size of a pea, but often extending to large patches.