The United States no longer depend upon foreigners for guns or armor, inasmuch as the circular issued in August, 1886, by the Navy Department inviting all domestic steel manufacturers to state the terms upon which they were willing to produce the steel plates and forgings required for ships and ordnance, has met with a prompt response. About 4500 tons were needed for armor, in plates varying from 20 feet by 8 feet by 12 inches thick, to 11.6 feet by 4.3 feet by 6 inches thick; and of the 1310 tons of steel forgings, 328 tons were intended for the 6-inch guns, 70 tons for the 8-inch, and 912 tons for the calibres between 10 and 12 inches, both inclusive. The rough-bored and turned forgings required by the contract were to weigh 3¼ tons for the 6-inch calibres, 5 tons for the 8-inch, 9½ tons for the 10-inch, 9¾ tons for the 10½-inch, and 12½ tons for the 12-inch. From the time of closing the contract twenty-eight 6-inch forgings were to be delivered in one year, and the remainder within eighteen months. All the 8-inch were to be ready within two years, and the 10-inch and larger calibres within two years and a half. The proposals opened on the 22d of last March showed that for the gun-forgings the Cambria Iron Company had bid $851,513, the Midvale Steel Company $1,397,240, and the Bethlehem Iron Company $902,230; and that for the armor-plates the Bethlehem Company had bid $3,610,707, and the Cleveland Rolling-mill Company $4,021,561. Subsequently the Navy Department awarded the contract to the Bethlehem Company, which agreed to furnish all the required steel at a total cost of $4,512,938.29. The tests are so rigorous that a high quality of steel is sure to be produced. The specifications require the forgings to be of open-hearth steel of domestic manufacture, from the best quality of raw material, uniform in quality throughout the mass of each forging and throughout the whole order for forgings of the same calibre, and free from slag, seams, cracks, cavities, flaws, blow-holes, unsoundness, foreign substances, and all other defects affecting their resistance and value. While it is prescribed that the ingots shall be cast solid, latitude is given to the method of production; but no matter what method may be employed, the part to be delivered for test and acceptance must be equal in quality and in all other respects to a gun ingot cast solid in the usual way, from which at least 30 per cent. of the weight of the ingot has been discarded from the upper end and 5 per cent. from the lower end.