Before presenting the table, several of the most noteworthy features of the information it conveys may be pointed to. The list comprises no fewer than 138 vessels, 50 of which are constructed of steel. The year 1881 occurs twenty-six times in the subjoined table, that number of vessels over 4000 tons having been turned out within the year. As already stated, this number is over two-thirds the total number for the ten years immediately preceding 1881, and is exactly double the number for the preceding five years. The year 1882 occurs twenty-four times, the year 1883 fifteen times, and the present year—although, of course, subject to possible additions—twenty-one times. The following summary gives the number of vessels of the “leviathan” order launched in each year since 1858—the year which witnessed the production of the _Great Eastern_—an achievement as regards size which has not hitherto been equalled:— 1858 1 | 1865 6 | 1872 3 | 1879 4 1859 0 | 1866 0 | 1873 9 | 1880 3 1860 0 | 1867 2 | 1874 9 | 1881 26 1861 0 | 1868 0 | 1875 3 | 1882 24 1862 1 | 1869 0 | 1876 0 | 1883 15 1863 3 | 1870 2 | 1877 1 | 1884 21 1864 2 | 1871 1 | 1878 2 | The column giving the districts in which the vessels have been built, shows—what doubtless is already well recognised—that the Clyde is supreme in this quantitative aspect of steamship production. That river occurs seventy-nine times in the table, a number equivalent to 57 per cent. of the total of all the centres put together. Barrow follows next in order, but with the relatively insignificant contribution of twelve—although it is worthy of note that this contribution is entirely made up by the vessels of one firm: _i.e._, the Barrow Shipbuilding Company—the Mersey contributes eleven, the Tyne ten, and the other districts correspondingly lower numbers. _List of Steamships above 4000 Tons Gross Register presently Afloat (or at one time in existence) or Under Construction, arranged in the order of their tonnage, and showing Builders’ Dimensions, Material employed in Construction, Names of Owners and of Builders, Date of Building, and Where Built._