The morning times., 1896-08-23
Copyright, 1896. }

Copyright, 1850
Chicago, Aug 20. If we could imagine
the worlds supply of gold and silver as 4
mighty metallic sea, into which trickle
little rills oil metal from mountain mines
In every quarter of the globe, we would get
Soodidea of the circulation of the metals,
IN their endless flow to the III onetary
centers, their use in irrigatins the arts,
their raining upon the unjust rather more
than upon the just, their evaporation and
precipIt alton. There are storm centers of
production of gol dand silver and there are
places, of which New York city is the
chief, where one can sit and watch the
stream flow past with unending and liule
varying current.
There have been five years in the past
twenty when the United States nd S imported
more of the precious metals than it eX-
ported, though only in 1850 and 1881 was
the excess at all noticeable. Averagine =
the twenty years between June 80, 1875,
and June 80, 1895, about S3o9, 900 900
of our precious metals have gone abroad in
settling balances, or say in round numbers
l5,O50, 900 per year. Subdivide still
farther, and the partolean stream is seen
~ flow past New York at an average rate
of about $2S per minute, comparison
which suggests the rate of foreign ex-
change rather better than the big figures.
Despite the constant drain, the domestic
production of the metals has been SO great
that there was in the country on June
80, 1895, about 81, ,124 900 900 more than
on June 80, 1875.
The springs of gold and silver in the
mountains had, in other words, gushed
forth at an average rate of Sl3o per
minute every hour of the day and night
fof twenty Years. Such spring Of wealth
wouldn't be a bad thing to own.
No one knows, no one can culle any
where hear an estimate OF the amount of
coin in the world. Soctbeers estimate
that there was So .301 80 400 of gold and
legal tender silver in the world in 1885
is as good as anyone's guess. Since that
year the world has produced some
81 500, ,236, zoo in bullion, but very little
nf this added metal gets into coinage. Sir
Robert Giffen, the eminent British statis-
tician. estimates that about twothirds OF
the annual product is used in the arts,
land il the consumption of India be in
rluded, as being either for simple hoard
Ing or for the arts, and in no case for
circulating money, then the demand for
gold for non-monetary purposes appears
almost equal TO the entire annual pro
duction''
In other words. the worlds stock of coined
money is not over $4,000 900 900. and is
almost stationary or increasing very slowly.
Still. Sc, 900, 900 900 is very pretty
sum. Assuming for the moment that it il
ali gold-itis, in fact, nearly all redeemable
in that metal-it would, whether coined i'll
s5pieces or sovereigns or 20-franc pieces or
2o-lira pieces, nicely pave farm OF a hun
dred acres or thereabouts.
The amount of the precious metals we
los, in twenty years was, in round numbers.
about One-twentieth or . per cent of the
worlds total supply of coin. In one year
we lost a fourth of per cent.
Our own production of gold ana silver
alone would, on this estimate, replace TIE
entire coinage of the world in but trifle
over eighty years, not TO speak of South
Africa, Australia and other buliOn-pro-
ducing places. But, as we have seen from
Sir Robert Giffen's estimate, the arts gof'-
BILE up most of the gold and silver as fast
as they are produced.
What the worlds total available gold
and silver may be, in coin. plate, jew
els, bullion, and all forms whatever, no
one can make even an intelligent guess
A French estimate puts it at about S2O,-
DOC, 100000 each of gold and silver.
Doubtless this is much underestimated.
Still. twenty billions OF gold makes
very respectable showing. 1t would take
forty thieves twenty three years TO steal
II all, il they made Il trip each night,
working Sundays aud holidays, and car
ried 200 pounds each TO a load. As for
the silver, the forty thieves might as
We'll give that up from the start, since
HE estimated supply of twenty billions
would weigh 537 900 tons and would
take the forty thieves 365 years to steal,
zach carrying some So, 1876. or 200 pounds,
per night
The forty robbers would need not only
pretty long lives, but a big cave in which
10 hide their stealings. If they stacked
up the worlds gold in one solid nonolitb
Il would make a solid cylinder as high
rs the tower of the Brooklyn Bridge and
and about II feet in diameter. If they sim
ply piled up the coins 1t would be con-
siderably larger.
The silver would make a stack Of the
same height and as big around as an ex-
tremely lig gas tank, say rather over 1O5
feet In diameter If absolutely solid.
If The gold stolen were all of the United
States coin blend, there would be 335
tons or So of silver even in the gold shaft,
and about 3,015 tons of copper, these be-
Ing the alloy metals used to give the soft
new gold the requisite hardness to resist
wear.
lnconceivabiy vast and valuable as would
be these shafts of gold and silver, they
have practically all been produced within
the past two centuries, aud might, IL
completely destroyed, be replaced within
the next thirty-five or forty years at
rate of production which it would be en-
tirely safe to predict. Since men began
10 use the precious metals for money
several times $4,000, ,O00,O have been
dug and smelted and lost. It has floated
In the air in impalpable dust from the
gritting wear of coins together. 1t lies
In the bulls OF wrecked galleons IN the