than 9,000,000 tons since 1869 becomes conceivable when we consider
how some of the great works in which it is employed have been
extending during that or even a shorter interval. And of these I need
only speak of the world's railways, of which there were in 1872
155,000 miles, and in 1882 not less than 260,000, but probably more
nearly 265,000 miles. In the United States alone about 60,000 miles
of railway have been built since 1869--the year, I may remind you in
passing, in which the Atlantic and Pacific States of the Union were
first united by a railway; while in our Indian Empire the
communication between Calcutta and Bombay was not completed till the
following year.

The substitution of iron and steel for wood in the construction of
ships, and the enormous increase in the tonnage of the world, in spite
of the economy arising from the employment of steamers in place of
sailing ships, is perhaps the element of increased consumption next in
importance to that of railways. I do not think that the materials are
available for estimating with any accuracy the amount of this
increase, but I believe I am rather understating it if I take the
consumption of iron and steel used last year throughout the world in
shipbuilding as having required considerably more than 1,000,000 tons
of pig iron for its production, and that this is not far short of four
times the quantity used for the same purpose before 1870. And so all
the other great works in which iron and steel are employed have
increased throughout the world. It would be tedious to indicate them
all.

Among those which rank next in importance to the preceding, I will
only name the works for the distribution of water and gas, which in
this country and in the United States have been extended in a ratio