The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1896-02-21
THE GOLD SUPPLY or THE
WORLD.


one hundred and SIXTY tons OF gold
coin will have poured INTO the United
States Treasury, as the result of the
recent bond issue. When we read of
the golden adornments of the temples
of old, of the vast boarded treasures
of kings, or of the booty that PiZarro
obtained in the Empire of the lncas,
we are led to suppose that the supply
of gold in orr own day is far less than
it was i'll those times. But the truth
is Just the reverse.
Within the past decade the output
of gold from the mines of the world
has been far greater than ever before.
1t has exceeded the product of the
forty years preceding the discovery OF
gold in California i'll 1919. The United
States at the present time stands first
among the producing countries
of the globe We have secured this
position within the past five years,
and mainly through the mines on IL
little strip Of mountain land three
miles square at the foot of Pixies
Peak.
During the year 1895 Colorado pro-
duced more gold than California pro
duced during any year early in the
tifties, when her yield was the great
est
The mining town of Cripple Creek,
Colorado. was nor in existence in 1898.
Last year the yield from these nine
square miles of land was one and a
half millions of dollars a month, and
the total product of gold from the
mines of the United States was forty
millions.
Nor has the increase in production
been confined to the United States.
The opening of the mines of the
Transvaal and other portions of Africa
has wonderfully increased the total.
South America has enlarged the vel
low stream, and promises still more,
while old mines in Australia and other
portions of the globe, which have been
living idle for years because the cost of
working them was greater than the
returns, have been re-opened as the
result of the application of science to
the art of mining.
This new method is known as the
cyanide process. 1t consists in the
iInmersing of the ore in watts contain
ing cyanide of potassium, in which
the gold is soluble. The liquid is then
drawn off, and pieces of zinc are
thrown into it. The gold forms a
coating on the zinc. The zinc is then
placed in clear water and violently
shaken, when the particles of pure
gold drop off. By the old process,
mines that yielded fifteen to eighteen
dollars to the ton, had to be abandon
ed as Improbable, while under this
new chemical process mines that yield
only seven dollars to the ton can be
worked with a profit.
A German writer, in discussing this
question, states that the aggregate
production is steadily increasing, and
that at the present rate of increase,
within the next five years the total
annual yield of gold of the mines OF
the world will have reached the enor-
nous sum of three hundred and
twenty millions of dollars, and that
the whole amount of gold in the pos
session of the nations of the globe III
the year 1900 will be two thousand
millions of dollars.
What effect this remarkable in
crease in the gold supply will have on
the monetary systeIas of the nations i'll
the future is not clearly discernible at
present. Scarcity and utility, togeth-
er with demand and the cost of pro
duction, are the elements that deter
mine the market value of any article
or substance If gold were so plenti-
full as iron, its market value would be
less per pound than that of iron, as its
utility is not rs great. Platinum and
Iridium are many more tines valuable
rarity of these metals Air and water
have the elements of usefulness and
demand, but their abundance makes
their market value zero.
However, with the exception of Mr..
J. Pierrpont Morgan, and perhaps a
few others of his class, the question of
oversupply and the consequent evils
of the same, is one that may with
great propriety be relegated for future
consideration