the bonanza of Gold Hill, which descends to a depth of 700 feet. Several companies are engaged in the excavation of this marvellous vein. The most favoured has been the Virginia Consolidated, which, out of twenty-five million dollars produced by the Comstock in 1875, yield seventeen million. The richness of the vein was ascertained at a depth of 1,600 feet. Shafts have been sunk to 2,500 feet, and one has been commenced which it is hoped will descend to 4,000 feet. A tunnel, the total length of which is to be 20,000 feet, has been bored in the side of the mountain to enable the vein to be worked from underneath, and the water to be carried off without using pumps: but this gigantic undertaking, which is being directed by the engineer Sutro, has, to all appearances, been commenced too late. On the one hand, the vein, contrary to all expectations, is poorer as the workings attain a greater depth; and, on the other hand, the heat at the bottom of the shaft is simply intolerable, viz. 46° Centigrade, and the hot springs that are found there have a still higher temperature, according to the close proximity to the centre fire. The workmen, who work quite naked, are instantaneously in a bath of perspiration; they can scarcely breathe, and are obliged to rest every ten minutes. Under these circumstances the price of labour is of course extremely high, and unless a fresh bonanza be found, the mine will finally be abandoned. The rapid diminution in the amount of production, and the alarming fall in the value of shares, do not allow one to count on a brilliant future. This prodigicus vein has exceeded in riches all that had ever been found previously in as great a degree as the placers of California surpassed any ancient washings. In ten years it has produced two hundred million dollars, ninety millions of which were gold. The adventurer who in 1869 discovered this famous hoard of riches, Henry Comstock, after having sold his claim committed suicide. The 'furia Americana' which has been displayed in the working of this mine has contributed to accelerate its exhaustion. The Comstock Lode, which in 1877 yielded $37,911,000, of which $17,771,000 were gold, fell off, in 1878, to $10,404,000 silver and $9,825,000 gold, total $20,230,000; in 1879, to $5,190,000 silver and $3,639,000 gold, total $8,830,000; and, in 1880, to $2,634,000 silver and $2,678,000 gold, total $5,312,000. The production of the first quarter of 1881 shows a still greater decrease; the total is only $426,400 against $7,549,000 in 1877, and $1,615,800 in 1880. The aggregate value of the twenty-eight principal mines on the Comstock Lode, which was, in 1875, $271,059,200, was on the 1st of May 1881 only $14,030,058. This rapid diminution has affected the total production of gold in the United States, which, according to official estimation, amounted to $47,266,107 in 1878, $38,900,000 in 1879, and $36,000,000 in 1880. The traveller who visits the American gold country sees every where works abandoned, buildings in ruins, and localities, which were but recently flourishing, with scarcely an inhabitant. Many of the mines established in the Mother Lode are no longer worked. Fortunately new ones are discovered, but they will be exhausted in their turn. The director of the Mint of the United States, M. Burchard, thinks that the number of mines worked exceeds a thousand, but many of them leave the workers at a loss. It is in the north of the Rocky Mountains that one still hopes to make happy discoveries. It is estimated that North America has contributed 14,000,000l. sterling of the stock of gold of the world. 6 The production of gold in Australia has followed pretty much the same course as in California. There, also, they have passed from the river sands to the deep alluvium, to arrive at last at the direct working of the veins; but from that moment the produce has gradually diminished. The chain of mountains which extends in Australia from north to south, parallel to the east coast, is formed of sedimentary strata, interspersed in many places with volcanic and eruptive rocks. Numerous veins, quartz reefs,' are visible, and contain gold. It is of their fragments that the auriferous alluvions are formed, which one meets with on all sides. These alluvions are easily worked, and yielded to the province of Victoria, as soon as they were discovered, a quantity of precious metal. After Campbell in 1850, and Hargreaves in 1851, had found the first nuggets, there was a rush to the gold-fields. In 1852 the production had already risen to 1,974,975 ounces. In 1855 it attained to 2,497,723 ounces; in 1856 it reached its maximum with 2,985,991 ounces, of a value of about 12,000,000l. sterling. Since then, although gold has been found in New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, and New Zealand, the supply has continually decreased. For Victoria the yield was, in 1876, 1,095,787 ounces, of which 605,859 came from the veins, and 357,901 from the alluvions, and, in 1879, only 758,947 ounces, of which 465,637 from the veins, and 293,310 from the alluvium. The number of miners has also considerably diminished. In 1850 there were 147,358, of whom 33,673 were Chinese. In 1873 there were not more than 37,453, of whom 14,784 worked at the veins, and 22,769 at the alluvions. In the province of New South Wales the mountains contain veins and the rivers auriferous sands. They were worked in all directions in a zone of at least 180 miles breadth; but the veins were not remunerative, and the alluvions were soon exhausted, so that the product regularly lessened. In 1871 it rose, according to Daintree, to 535,492 ounces. For the later years I borrow the figures from the excellent report of the German Consul at Sydney, reproduced by M. Soetbeer.2 It says: The gold received at Sydney, at the Mint of the Colony, 1 Queensland, 1873. 2 Jahrbücher für national Ökonomie, 1881, 4 Heft, p. 370. from New South Wales, in 1876 rose to 126,780 ounces, of the value of 479,1337. These figures diminish each year. In 1872, the year which yielded the most, the produce was 1,513,1861. In 1878, as I have remarked in my report of last year, the production of gold continued to decrease. In 1877 the Mint only received 97,582 ounces, of the value of 366,3291. In 1879 the gold receipts (as proceeding from the workings of New South Wales) have fallen to 75,492 ounces, of the value of 279,1661. The yield of gold from all sources amounts to 109,347 ounces, of the value of 382,741l. Three-fourths of the ore are obtained from the washings.' The chain of Australian mountains, on entering Queensland, widens, and with its lateral ridges attains a breadth of twenty-five miles. Here also recent volcanic rocks, diorite and even granite, have brought gold to the surface. In many of the rivers, auriferous sands and large nuggets have been discovered, and already the veins are heavily worked. The richest mine, the Comstock' Lode, of that Colony is that of Gympie, to the north of Brisbane, on the Mary river. At the end of 1868 this mine yielded nearly 84,000 ounces, and 70,852 ounces in 1869. Since then the produce has been maintained tolerably regularly. The works have already reached a depth of 600 feet. Queensland also has had its period of promising discoveries. Thus in 1874, the Palmers gold fields, where 6,000 men were collected, produced 175,000 ounces. The German Consul of Brisbane gave the following figures for this province: 1,429,929l. in 1876, and 1,611,1057. in 1879. He added, 'As fresh discoveries continue to be daily made, and as this district contains hundreds of square miles where no white man has yet planted his foot, still further discoveries of rich goldfields may be hoped for.' This hope, although not without foundation, is not yet realised, as from the most recent reports the exportation of ore from Queensland had fallen to about one million sterling in 1878. South Australia and Tasmania have also produced a little gold, the total value being about 40,000l. in 1878. New Zealand yielded about forty millions sterling of precious metal between 1857 and 1879. The northern island has not contributed more than five millions, found principally in the veins of the peninsula of Coromandel which have not formed auriferous alluvions. In the southern island, on the contrary, which has produced seven times more (or thirty-five millions), the gold was found almost exclusively in auriferous sand and deep leads, which, strange to say, were discovered on the declivity of the mountains; here they also employed, as in California, hydraulic power for the working, and the process of exhaustion resembles that of the other gold countries. The growth is rapid, and the decline equally speedy; thus a gold field near Otago gives, in 1861, 187,695 ounces; in 1863, 580,233 ounces, and falls in 1869 to 149,364 ounces. The production of the two isles diminished, though slowly, of late years. The value of the gold exported was in 1874, 1,500,000l. ; in 1875, 1,400,000l.; in 1876, 1,268,599.; in 1877, 1,476,312l.; and in 1878, 1,244,1927. The following table, prepared from the very careful calculations of M. Soetbeer, shows the progressive decline of the total production of gold in Australia, which has fallen to the half of what it was twenty years ago. The exportations of metal to England have diminished still more rapidly and more abruptly. This seems to prove that Australia absorbs the metal, partly for her home circulation, and partly for her direct commerce with the Indies, China, and Japan. From 1871 to 1875 England received from Australia an average each year of 7,097,800l. of gold; in 1878, 5,680,000l.; in 1879 only 3,180,600l. ; and in 1880, 3,614,200l. These are the actual facts, and they are not reassuring for the future. Certain mineralogists, as, for example, G. Ulrich of Dunedin in New Zealand, Director of the Mining Department of Sydney, do not share the gloomy forebodings of Dr. Suess. After all, they say, if the production of gold diminishes in Australia, it is not for lack of metal, but because the workmen prefer to buy the land for agricultural purposes, or for the rearing of cattle. So it is, but that is precisely what Dr. Suess affirms. When the goldfields are exhausted, it is necessary to excavate the veins, and then the work generally ceases to be remunerative, though some continue to work for a time, encouraged by the exceptional success of some miners. Hope and the gambling fever stimulate them to work at a loss, but at length they become discouraged and stop. According to M. Del Mar, on an average, each dollar drawn from the earth costs two. Australia still supports herself by the goldfields and the deep leads; but when the miner shall be reduced to the quartz reefs,' the produce will certainly be reduced to one half. M. Ulrich himself, notwithstanding his sanguine views, admits that Victoria will fall to 600,000 ounces-that is, to half of what she has recently produced. It is estimated that Australia has supplied 260,000,000l. sterling in gold to the world. The reader will, no doubt, have been fatigued with the uniformity of these details, but it is in that that the instruction consists. It is this identical repetition of the same facts which enables Dr. Suess to predict that the production of gold is fatally destined to decrease. He admits that one may perhaps still discover, in the less explored regions of the Rocky Mountains of Central Africa, or in Australia, goldfields as rich as those of California, or veins as marvellous as the Comstock Lode; but the more powerful our present process of working, the more rapid the exhaustion of the new mines. It has been so in the past, and it will not be otherwise in the future. From all these facts Dr. Suess concludes that the desire to make everywhere gold the only coinage, to the exclusion of silver, is pure madness. Geology opposes it. There does not exist in the world gold enough for that purpose. The true money metal is silver Locke was right in saying Silver is the instrument and measure of commerce in all the civilised and trading parts of the world;' and Bagehot expressed the same opinion before the Silver Commission of 1876 (Question 1,389): Silver is the normal currency of the world.' In proportion as the people become wealthy and industrious, they require more and more gold, so that the diminishing production of gold will be barely sufficient for the use of the arts and manufactures, and the yellow metal will disappear, little by little, from circulation. At all times gold has been a subsidiary money-a money of luxury. It was a consequence of natural laws. Economical necessities will oblige men to submit to them. That which has passed since the date of the publication of Dr. Suess' book (1877) has plainly confirmed his predictions. Already the scarcity of gold has created an appearance of disquietude. One cannot be surprised at it, when one thinks of the small quantity of gold which is at man's disposal. The total quantity of this metal produced since the discovery of America is calculated to be 1,400,000,000l. A learned professor of the University of Rome, Messedaglia (Storia e Statistica dei Metalli preziosi), has calculated that this sum, equivalent to 535 cubic mètres, would be sufficient only to cover the pavement under the cupola of the Pantheon or of St. Paul's with a bed of gold of 37 centimètres, or one foot in depth, and the annual production would add to it barely one centimètre. Of this quantity what remains under the form of money and ornaments? Perhaps one milliard sterling. M. Soetbeer shows that there exists as money in civilised countries (less India and the extreme East) 13,400,000,000 German marks (670,000,000l.) of gold, and 8,400,000,000 marks (420,000,000l.) of silver. That which singularly aggravates the economical situation is that the world's currency, which was maintained yearly, till 1873, by gold and by silver united-that is to say, by a total value of 35,000,000l. sterling-is now to be kept up by gold alone, of which the production does not attain more than 20,000,000l. each year. Trade consumes certainly from twelve to fourteen millions sterling; for official reports show that manufactures and arts require, in the United States, 10,000,000 dollars or two millions sterling, the same amount in |
