The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1897-08-13
Washington Letter.
WASHINGTON ID. c., August 0, 1885,

The excitement and interest caused by
the recent finds of gold in the Klo ndyke
region are still further stimulated by re-
port coming from London to the effect that
the Peninsula of Kamchatka directly
across from Alaska, on the Asiatic side, Is
likely to prove as rich In the precious metal
as our own fields. These statements create
good deal of interest here, especially
among those who are following closely the
enormous gold developments of the world
which have recently occurred. An exami-
nation of the map of North America will
show at glance that the great gold field of
Alaska which Is now being developed is a
part Of the same general line of mountains
which supplied the enormous gold produc-
ton of California, indeed of the same gener-
al line which produced the gold of Peru, OF
Genital America, of the United States, and
now of Alaska. Take your map OF the
! world and follow this mountain range and
you will find that 1t seems to cross from
the North American continent to Asia at
the Behring Straits, and that the extension
of this general range across into Asia
covers the very country into which the
Russian government is now pressing gold
developments and the general search for
gold. The dispatch referred to above
states that a Russian expedition has dis
covered twelve gold regions In the vicinity
of the sea of Okhotsk, and 1t believes that
the western peninsula of the Peninsula of
Kamchatka will develop gold fields which
will, as the dispatch puts it, when opened,
'be second California"
whether the prediction of the Russians
that they are to develop gold fields in KAN
chatka which will rival the early history of
our California gold fields is to be realized
or not" said Mr.. Marcus Baker, of the
Geological Survey, talking of this subject,
certainly there can be no doubt that the
gold of the world has enormously increased
and is now increasing wonderfully. There
are two distinct gold fields today which
are producing gold in very great guam
tities-South Africa and North America.
The Alaska fields are, of course, part OF
the same general line of mountains which
developed such wonderful gold deposits in
our own territory less than half century
ago, and whether the mountains of Kam-
chatka and Siberia are a part of the same
general system or not, 1t would not be sur
prising If these reports of large gold de-
posts there should also be confirmed.
The fact is there is greater incentive to
the production Of gold today than ever be-
fore. There are two or three reasons for
this; first. that silver is so cheap that there
is less incentive for its production and the
people who had formerly given their atten-
ton to the mining of silver are now looking
for new gold fields; second, the gold mining
and gold production becomes easier every
year as new methods develop and new dis
coveries are made. Take the great gold
fields of California. which were supposed to
be worked out years ago; the cyanide pro-
cess now gives promise of making them
again productive, and It Is quite probable
that 1t will be profitable to work over all
the rejected material which was thrown
away by the men who covered that
great gold field, and produce from 1t by this
cyanide process great quantities of gold.
This is not unlikely to be the case further
south, In Mexico, Central America, and
Peru, where such quantities of gold were
mined many years ago. And to this the
gold developments of South Africa, Aus
tralia, North America, and prospective
Siberia, and it is not surprising that the
gold productions of the world are more than
keeping pace with the growth of business.
AS everybody knows, the gold produc-
tions of the world have steadily increased
during the past few years, those of last year
having been greater than any in the known
history of the world, while all indications
now point to still greater increased pro-
duction for 1897"
Mr.. Bakers remark that the gold pro-
duction of the world has increased with
such rapid strides suggests some inquiry
upon this subject. That inquiry shows
shoe thO Soiu VI tuO WOIlu tOudy 10 ucdliy
or quite three times as much as so years
ago. Mulhall, who has been widely quoted
in the papers Of the United States In the
past few weeks, indicates in his latest
dictionary of statistics that the amount of
gold in the world, coined and uncoined,
fifty years ago amounted to less than two
and half billion dollars. Taking his
figures for 1890 and adding the production
since that time 1t would appear that the
gold of the world today, coined and I'M
coined, is oyer seven billions of dollars,
being nearly or quite three times as much
as 1t was fifty years ago. Had there been
no Increase in the population meantime,
there would be thus three times as much
gold for each person now as there was half
a century ago. But the population of the
world has increased about fifty per cent In
that time, so that the amount of gold for
each individual is therefore about twice
what 1t was at that time. This, however,
relates to the gold In bulk, and not gold
money. A further study of Mulhall and