The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1877-08-18

"A Single Gold Standard Inexpedienr-
An Interesting Book.
An eminent German geologist, Herr
Edward Suess, Professor of Geology at
the University at Vienna, and widely
known throughout Europe for his scien-
tific works and researches, has recently
published a remarkable book entitled
1.-The Future of Gold"-"Die Zukunft
des Golde" 1t is much more than a
mere collection of facts specially relat-
ing to the production of gold, for it
aims also to supply unquestionable de-
ficiencies in our previous knowledge
concerning the matter of money, and
to apply to economic phenomena cer-
tain natural laws formulated with
scientific precision in the work in
| question.
! As geologist and mineralogist of
authority, Herr SueSs asserts positively
| that the total production of gold from
| the remotest epoch known to the pres
ent time has not been large enough to
authorize the universal establishment
of the single gold money standard; and
that mankind is in far greater danger
of an ultimate gold famine than of the
exhaustion of the coal-beds of the earth,
as was once apprehensively considered
possible. The existing stock of gold,
coupled with that which may continue
to be extracted, taken at the maximum
that may be reasonably anticipated,
Professor Suess mentions, is of SO
little magnitude relatively as to excite
the rational fear that there will not be
enough of gold for the exigencies of
| future generations. To reach this con-
clusion-for it is positively that with
1,a l,4 -,
only to examine closely on the out
prospective demands for gold, and on
afforded by the mines and fields now
operated, together with the promises
which geology holds out, with reason
BILE assurance, of the discovery of new
mines adequate to the maintenance of
proper supply of the essential precious
metal. And upon these material points
the work of this eminent German savant
is particularly interesting and instruc-
| tive.
He asserts that the mines of the
precious metals are simply magazines,
marking the geological transformation
of their component matter in the super
! fetal strata of the earth accessible to
man; and these several strata contain
ing the precious metals he subdivides
or distinguishes into three classes.
The first class contains gold and silver,
minutely scattered through the rock,
and this is the earliest condition. In
this class occur deposits of gold, blended
in metallic stage, such as is found at
Nijni-Tapil, in the Ural Mountains.
This particular gold-bearing stratum is
rare, and so insignificant in its produc-
tion that is really not to be taken into
consideration in estimating the metallic
resources for the worlds monetary
system. In the second class Herr
Suess places the seams of assures which
have been wrought by volcanic action,
| to which class belongs the so-called
Bonanza" of Nevada, the lodes or
veins of New Granada and of the Car
pathian Mountains, those of Victoria, of
of New Zealand.
AS for the third and last class of
sources or deposits of the precious
metal, or rather of gold, it has its origin
in chemical alterations and mechani-
cal displacement of strata or beds of the
metal formerly contained in the inte-
rior of mountains, affected by water
and the air. These two powerful trans
forming agents have, in time, decom-
posed the older strata, carried them
away by means of water courses, and
formed those beds of gold and platinum
bearing gravel and alluvium which con-
stitute the great gold-fields Of Califor-
mia, Australia, New Zealand, and the
Ural They are mined by hydraulic
processes.
Herr Suess estimates the total produc-
| tiOn of gold for the quarter of a century
ending with 1875, at 16,S04, 900, 900
francs (S3, ,249, 600, ,00O), of which a.
7S3, ,000,0 900 francs were supplied from
the alluvial or placer mines, and the
remainder, 2,021 ,000, 900 francs ($391,-
600, ,0O0), was derived from all other
sources. Thus, it is this last class of
gold sources which must play the
decisive part in the supply of gold in
the future. Upon this point the prog
nostication of the German geologist is
this:
From all geological revelations the
| production of gold must essentially
depend upon those parts of the earth
where for certain time the primitive
formation was left exposed at the
surface. If we mark upon sphere all
such spaces, excluding the seas, oceans
and lakes, the :steppes, salt, lwaterless
deserts, and regions covered by Polar
ice and eternal snow, and deduct the
ground which has been exhausted,
more or less, in the course Of ages since
the period when Ramses II. sunk shafts
in the Akita, the gold field of that
epoch, we must necessarily reach the
conclusion that up to the present time
more than one half the quantity of
gold which could possibly be extracted
from the earth by any means yet known
has already come into the hands of
man.
There is also reason for expecting
this exhaustion of the supply to be
reached all the speedier because of the
immensely greater scale and improved
processes by which mining is now car
ried on, and the great depths that are
now reached. Consequently the period
when the production Of gold shall di-
minish in permanent manner and de-
gree is relatively approaching; and it
must unavoidably happen, according