Importations surpassed all previous years, while exports exceeded them by nearly $20,000,000, and the net export of gold amounted to nearly $40,000,000. Money was easy during the first quarter, and then for a week a 10 per cent. rate occurred. Thereafter, excepting the usual July 1st hardening, easy rates prevailed till August. Stiffening and fluctuating rates ensued till 30 to 40 per cent. in exceptional cases had been reached in December. During the year, bank circulation declined to $126,000,000. Specie reserve sank to $164,000,000 and rose to $171,000,000 with the ending of the year; legal tenders to $84,000,000, and the number of banks rose to 3,326; their capital to $617,000,000; their deposits to $1,436,000,000, and their discounts and loans to $1,817,000,000, and surplus and undivided profits to $269,000,000. Unused deposits, capital, surplus, and undivided profits were growing very small in comparison with loans and discounts at the end of the year. The banks had to work closely, and the demands of the South and West for currency were severely felt. PANIC OF 1890.--In this condition the year 1890 opened, and, with ever growing pressure for bank accommodation, displayed great activity throughout all departments of trade and transportation, with an unequalled volume of transactions. But it was as impossible to grant to the overtrading the money needed,--though the Secretary of the Treasury, in seventy days, threw a million a day into the market by buying Government Bonds,--as it had been for the "Gentleman's Agreement" of 1888--that of the chief railroad presidents--to maintain rates, to permanently sustain prices of railroad securities against an oversupply of them; however, both delayed the inevitable.