was undertaken. The rapidity with which iron rose in price in the United States is shown by the circumstance that No. 1 pig-iron, which sold for $30.50 per ton at Philadelphia, in January, 1871, sold for $37.50 in January, 1872, and $53 in September of the same year.—Report of the American Iron and Steel Association, November, 1873.
1874. The reaction (in the world's demand for iron) in 1874 has been as general and decided as the advance in 1872 was unexpected and bewildering. It has been felt most severely in the United States; but in the United Kingdom, and in France and Germany, the iron industry has been so much depressed, all through the year, that many iron-works have been closed, and many others have been employed but a part of the time. The testimony of statistics, and of all calm observers, shows that prostration is greater at the close of 1874 than it was at the close of 1873, and that the general distress is greater. At least a million of skilled and unskilled working-men and working-women in this country are out of employment to-day, because there is no work for them to do.—Report, December 31, 1874.
1877. Since 1873 each year has shown a decrease in the production of pig-iron in the United States, as compared with the preceding year, the percentage of decrease being as follows: 1874, six per cent; 1875, fifteen per cent; 1876, eight per cent. This is a very great shrinkage, and indicates, with concurrent low prices, a very great depression in the pig-iron industry of the country. If the rate of decrease which marked the period from 1873 to 1876 were to be continued, the production of pig-iron in the United States would entirely cease in 1884, less than eight years from the present time, and our furnace-stacks would only be useful as observatories for the study of astronomy. But our pig-iron industry is not destined to come to such an untimely end, for we see that the heavy percentage of decrease which had characterized the year 1875 was not continued in 1876. It seems plain that the production of pig-iron commenced last year to rally from the effects of the panic of 1873.—Report, June, 1887.
1878. The year 1877 witnessed an increased demand for some of our iron and steel products, as compared with 1876; neutralized, however, so far as producers were concerned, by a very marked decrease in prices. Nor did low prices form the only unfavorable feature of the iron trade of 1877. More than one half of the furnaces, and many of the rolling-mills, were idle the whole year. Prices were so low as to warrant the opinion that they could be no lower. Hence, mainly, the increased consumption of iron in that year.—Report, July, 1878.
1879. In nearly all the branches of the domestic iron and steel industries there has been an increased production in 1878 over 1877; but this increase in production has been accompanied by a decrease in prices. At no time in the history of the country have prices for iron and steel been as low as they were in 1878, excepting in colonial days, when the price of pig-iron was lower.—Report, May 6, 1879.
1880. Near the close of 1878 it became evident that the business depression which had succeeded the panic of 1873 was slowly disappearing, and that a general revival of prosperity was at hand. The country had been favored with good crops, and short harvests abroad has caused a demand for agricultural surplus. In the spring months of 1879 the managers of the leading railroads of the country, being assured of a continued increase of their business through the unfavorable outlook for the European harvests, simultaneously began to give out orders for materials containing iron and steel. In the closing months of 1879 excitement and speculation took the place of the gloom and discouragement with
