The make of iron which, on the introduction of steam, had suddenly risen to nearly 50,000 tons per annum, reached 125,000 in 1796, and in 1806 had advanced to nearly 260,000. In 1825 the make was nearly 600,000 tons; in 1840 it amounted to 1,300,000 tons; and in 1854 to 2,700,000 tons. In 1865 it reached the enormous figure of 4,819,254 tons—as much as the combined production of Continental Europe and the United States; and there is little doubt that the present yield does not fall much short of 6,000,000 tons! A similar colossal expansion is without a parallel in the annals of metallurgic industry. The chief districts which furnish this incredible quantity of iron are situated in Yorkshire, South Wales, Staffordshire, Durham, Lancashire, Cumberland, Shropshire, Derbyshire, and the West of Scotland. The number of furnaces in blast in 1865 were, in England 376, distributed over 176 iron-works; in Wales 135, distributed over 49 works; and in Scotland 141, over 32. To supply these furnaces there were raised 9,910,045 tons of ore, the estimated value of which at the place of production was 3,324,804_l._, that of the pig-iron, at the mean average cost at the place of production, being 12,048,133_l._ Of the iron-stone, 1,384,500 tons were argillaceous carbonate from the coal-measures of Staffordshire and Worcestershire; 3,166,000 tons from the Yorkshire mines; nearly 1,500,000 tons from the coal-measures of North and South Wales, and 1,500,000 tons argillaceous carbonate from Scotland. Of the red hematites of Whitehaven and Ulverstone, which consist almost entirely of peroxide of iron, and are reckoned among our best ores, 214,433 tons were smelted at the spot, and 937,386 tons exported for the supply of Staffordshire, South Wales, and other districts. The brown hematite (brown oxide of iron) of the Forest of Dean, where the ore exists in almost unlimited quantity, is raised exclusively for shipment to the iron-works of South Wales. Though not rich, yet, from the great masses in which it is found, its cost of production is very low. The finest iron ores, such as the black oxide or magnetite, specular iron, and spathose iron, or sphærosiderite, which furnish the best kinds of iron, are unfortunately but of rare occurrence in Great Britain. As we see by the following table[60] of the production of cast iron in the chief European mining States—