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the annual supply of gold amounted to $12,648,000, and of silver to $36,289,008; making a total of $ 48,937,008. There is reason to believe that the large portion of this product which was furnished by the American mines was rather increased than diminished up to 1810, when the contest began which finally produced the independence of the Spanish American colonies. The revolutionary troubles, and the proscription of the old Spanish families to whom the mines chiefly belonged, caused the works in many cases to be abandoned, and there was a great falling off of the product. Mr. Jacob estimated, that, for the twenty years ending with 1829, they did not yield annually over $20,000,000, or considerably less than half of their former product. But he evidently exaggerates the falling off; and the estimate which Mr. McCulloch formed in 1834 may be safely extended to the whole period, making the annual supply from all parts of the earth to be $30,000,000. Soon after 1834, the gold product of the Russian mines and washings began to swell the amount very rapidly, so that Mr. McCulloch affirmed, in 1845, that, if the supply from this source should continue a few years longer, it would cause a fall in the value of gold as compared with silver and with everything else. In 1847, it had raised the annual supply from all parts of the world to $67,000,000, making it nearly one third larger than it had been in 1800. But what was this to the astounding results produced by the discovery of the Californian and Australian gold washings? The gold obtained in Australia alone, in 1852, was estimated at 330,000 pounds Troy; and the supply from California that year is believed to have been 252,000 pounds Troy. It has turned out, indeed, that 1852 was far the most productive year, and there has been a considerable falling off since, especially in Australia. Still, it is safe to estimate the total product of these two countries, in 1854, at 350,000 pounds; and if the supply from Russia and other sources be added, the aggregate is nearly 482,000 pounds, or about $119,536,000. By a curious coincidence, the annual supply of silver from the Mexican and South American mines has been largely augmented during the last ten years, the total for the whole world being one third larger in 1850 than it was in 1845; the aggregate amount mined in the former year was nearly $44,000,000. Putting these two

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sums together, we have the value of gold and silver obtained from the mines in 1854 equal to $163,536,000.*

The results now obtained may be put into a tabular form for the purposes of comparison.

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The supply for 1854, then, was five and a half times larger than the annual product twenty years ago, and about three and one third times larger than the greatest amount obtained in any one year before 1840. Unless new gold fields should be discovered, however, of which there seems little probability at present, it is certain that the maximum supply was obtained in 1852, and that there has since been a very rapid and considerable falling off. While 718,000 pounds Troy were obtained in 1852, only 597,000 pounds formed the supply in 1853, and 482,000 pounds was the estimate, probably an exaggerated one, for 1854, the diminution in two years being nearly 33 per cent. In 1855, the supply was probably not more than half as great as in 1852. The falling off was even more sudden and marked in Australia than in California. In respect to silver, on the other hand, the supply is steadily but slowly on the increase, the most cautious estimates making the increase at least 2 per cent a year. The annual product of this metal is now estimated at very nearly $50,000,000, the chief portion of the increase being from Mexico and Chili.

The great difference between the experiment which was tried two or three centuries ago, and that which is now in progress, is, that in the former case far the greater part of the addition which was made to the world's stock of the precious metals was in silver, while most of the present increase is in gold. And this is a very important difference, as regards the

* The estimates in this paragraph, except that I have sometimes used the nearest round numbers, are taken from J. D. Whitney's "Metallic Wealth of the United States described and compared with that of other Countries," (Philadelphia, 1854,) a work which contains a great deal of original information of much interest, and a careful digest of all the statistics of the subject that could be gleaned from recent publications of good authority both in Europe and America.

question of the probable long continuance of the enlarged annual product. Silver is obtained by mining, and the veins which are worked are most frequently found to grow richer as they are followed into the bowels of the earth. The expense of working them increases as we descend, but the steadily increasing product is generally more than an offset for this enlarged cost. Gold, on the other hand, is generally obtained by washing from a superficial deposit of gravel and sand. It is chiefly found in what the geologists call "the drift," and in a stratum of it of no great thickness. Being thus spread out over a great extent of ground, and lying at or near the surface, almost any number of persons can be engaged in obtaining it without impeding each other's operations. If, also, as is the case in California, and to a great extent in Australia, the land in the auriferous district has been but imperfectly, or not at all, appropriated either by individuals or the government, -if it is, in the main, open to all comers, as the Great Bank is to all fishermen, then, large as the district may be, it is soon covered with gold-hunters. The most promising localities are quickly exhausted; and then, every year, the labor of gathering the shining dust will increase, and the returns will diminish. The experience of California is conclusive on this point. There can be no doubt that the whole amount obtained was considerably diminished after the number of washers was largely increased. True, the first search is generally imperfect, and a second washing of the same gravel, with more care and method, may afterwards yield a fair profit. So, also, the solid rock, though it be tough quartz, in which the gold spangles now found in the drift were originally imbedded, may be crushed and ground by heavy machinery, and a supply of auriferous sand and gravel be thus obtained by artificial means, in addition to that which natural agencies have spread out over the surface. We may not anticipate, then, that the goldfever will subside as rapidly as it rose, or that the gold-bearing districts will ever be completely exhausted. Still, two processes must always be more laborious and expensive than one, and the ground will no longer be open to every comer, though he has no other capital than a stout pair of arms, and a great capacity of enduring fatigue. When the business is all reduced to pounding up primary or metamorphic rocks with ma

chines which are yet to be invented, and to washing gravel for the second time, it is reasonable to expect, that, although capitalists may get a fair return for their enterprise, the steam-ships will no longer bring home gold at the rate of three or four millions a month.

Taking all these considerations into view, together with the fact that we have now three great gold-bearing regions to depend upon, so distant from each other as Russia, California, and Australia, it will not be deemed incautious to anticipate, that the annual supply of the two precious metals will not fall below a hundred millions of dollars for many years, and that, within a quarter of a century, this supply will depreciate money to one half or one third of what was its value before 1850.

In respect to the relative amounts by weight of the two precious metals, it appears from the statistics already given, that, at the beginning of the present century, the annual product of gold was to that of silver as 1 to 43. In 1845, the supply from Russia having largely increased the quantity of gold, and the quantity of silver being somewhat less than in 1800, the ratio was only as 1 to 17. In 1852, the supply from the Californian and Australian gold-fields having obtained its maximum, the ratio of the two metals was as 1 to 4; in other words, if the annual product of the two metals had continued to be in this proportion, silver would have risen certainly to one fourth, and probably, considering the more extensive use of the cheaper metal, to one half, of the value of gold. But the proportion has not been continued; the amount of gold obtained in each year has rapidly fallen off, while that of silver has steadily increased, so that, in 1854, the ratio is probably as 1 to 6. The following table exhibits in one view these sudden changes in the relative quantities of the two metals, the figures indicating the weight in pounds Troy.*

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In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, while the Mexican

In this table I have adopted the estimate of the well-informed City correspondent, or commercial editor, of The Times, that since 1850 the annual product of silver has been increasing at the rate, at least, of 21 per cent a year.

and South American mines were pouring out their treasures of silver, gold rose, from a comparative value only ten times as great as that of silver, to that which it had in 1848, of nearly 16 to 1. Only three years ago, then, it appeared reasonable to believe that the sudden and great increase in the annual product of gold, the annual product of silver being then supposed to be nearly stationary, would carry back the relative value of the two metals, not merely to its former point of 10 to 1, but perhaps, as already mentioned, of 4, or even 2, to 1. It was even thought, that the rise in the comparative value of silver would be a tolerably exact measure of the depreciation of gold. Acting under this expectation, the government of Holland demonetized gold, and made silver the standard of value, thinking thereby to avoid the threatened decline in the value of money. But as the annual supply of gold is now rapidly falling off, while that of silver is steadily increasing,* it appears probable that the relative value of the two will not be much affected, that it will not become less than 10 or 12 to 1, while there will be a regular progressive diminution in the value of both. We cannot expect, then, that the whole decline in the value of money, or even a considerable portion of it, will be indicated by the variation in the relative values of gold and silver.

Very good reasons have been given why the discovery of the

* Humboldt declared, forty years ago, that the mines of New Spain contained silver enough to deluge the world. A recent observer, M. Dupont, who has published an excellent work on the production of the precious metals in Mexico, adopts the views of Humboldt, and adduces much additional testimony in confirmation of them. He describes several formations of rock, in which silver is almost sure to be found, and says, that although these formations are rare in the neighborhood of the city of Mexico, as we travel further northward they become of frequent occurrence, and, on crossing the principal chain of mountains towards the Gulf of California, the whole western slope of the Sonora Cordillera is composed of them. Improved methods of mining, also, have produced great results in some of the old localities, where the works had been given up for years, under the belief that it could not be continued with profit. Thus the Frasnillo mine, described in 1827 as an abandoned property, from which no hopes could be entertained, now yields more than $2,000,000 in silver annually. From another locality, in Zacatecas, which was thought to be exhausted about 1800, there was extracted, between 1827 and 1839, about 150 million francs' worth of silver. If an efficient government and a race of energetic emigrants should ever be introduced into Mexico, as in case of its probable annexation to this country, a revolution would take place in silver min

ing, and a fall in value of silver would be inevitable.

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