The San Francisco call., 1897-06-06

Director of the Mint Preston has given
out at Washington his own estimate of the
gold yield of the United States, California and
other States for the year 1896 Some weeks
ago the estimates OF c. Yale, the statis tician
of the Mint at San Francisco and of the Cali
fOrnia State Mining Bureau were given out
and his figures taken generally as the
official estimate of the gold product of Cali
fornia for that year. Cal fornia has three
official records to go by. Early in the year
WeAs, Fargo & Co. publishes lis estimate,
som9 weeks later the Mints satisticlan gives
| forth his figures, ana along in the summer
time the Director of the Mint at Washington
sizes the whole thing up and says that CaIifor-
MAS gold production is so and so.
The production of gold in California is
hard thing to get at. The Wens-Fargo esti-
mate is based upon the god shipments which
pass through the hands of the express COM
pany. The estimat of the Mint's statIstlcian
is the result OF months of careful inquiry of
every known gold prod ucer in the State. Mr.
Yale receives reports from every working gold
mine in the State under the seal of Individual
secrecy, and these reports are checked in a
hundred ways by great mass OF inquiries
sent 10 all sorts OF sources of information and
by his own intimate knowledge OF the mining
business. Mr.. Yale's figures are taken, how
ever, entirely frc IN the gold producers. He
does not directly consider returns from the
Mint or from the smelteTs ana other depots of
the States gold products all over the Pacific
Coast. Mr.. Yale's carefully compiled figures
given few weeks ago as a result of extern
sive and careful inquiry among the gold pro-
ducers of the State credited CALIFORNIA; with a
gold product of $17, 7,151 ,562, an increase of
81, S47 ,245 over the product of 1895. The
gold mining boom of 1896 ana the large
amount of development WORK which attended
it m ade these figures appear very conserya.
tive to everybody familiar with the indus ry
in this State
Mr.. Yale has as wide an acquaintance with
California gold miners and their operations
as any man in the West, and when his months
OF careful inquiry were checked by his per-
sonal acquain tance, his figures undoubtedly
constituted the most correct and conservative
estimate which could be arrived at
But the Director of the Mint takes q census
of the gold product in a different wav. He
acquires directly returns from all the mints
Government assay offices and the smeIters of
the country, and upon these returns ne bases
an independent estimate. close INQUIRY
into the disposition of the gold product of
California would show that large percentage
OF 1t would escape this census. The bulk Of
Calitornia's free milling gold goes direct to
the Mint The largest proportion OF the un-
worked sulphuretS probably goes to the Selby
Smelling Works. Other quantities are shipped
to other places The returns from widely
scattered Pacific Coast smelters help make up
the estimates Of the Director Of the Mint, but
the Director of the Mint appears not to take
into con derauon the gold which escapes
these few great depots of the product
In California several thousand Chinese are
industriously working old placer claims and
the Chinese product never gets within the
range of off eial estimate 1t is packed off as
dust and taken to China. Little OF it reaches
the Mint and little of it is shipped by express
The best judges guess that perhaps So, 600 600
year is taken out by the Chinese and little Of
this will figure in the returns which the Di-
rector of the Mint considers. The gold which
goes directly INTO the arts does not reach the
Mint either. San Francisco has one of the big
gest goio manufacturing plan Is il the world,
ana the gold IL uses is generally brought
dlreet from the produt erS. The gold that goes
into the useful arts through this estab bIlsh-
ment ana IN other ways escapes the returns to
the Director OF the Mint. So also does the bull
lion which gold producers deposit in vaults
and dispose ol in various ways But
after considering his returns from the
mints and smelters OF tie Pacific Coast,
ana after concluding on general pgln-
clples that the California estimate was too
nigh, the Director of the Mint gives out the
estimate that in 1895 California produced
T21.6OO ounces. or about $14 SOC, GOO, de-
crease from the figures of 1885. This is cut
ung down Mr.. Yale's estimate about s., ,OO0,-
OOo In the lace OF a vigorous gold mining de-
'elopment which has not been eQualed in
generation.