The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-01-11

| from the mines of the United States.
4 ?. A statement OF the foreign gold
and silver refined at domestic works.
3. A statement (as accurate as the
total statement) of the amounts fur
nished by each district.
4. A simple division of the gold into
classes according to its source, viz,
placer gold and vein gold, and subdi-
vision of the vein gold into gold from
smelling ores, and gold from lean
or free-millinS ores.
3 A statement of the character OF the
I predorninating ores from each mining
/ district, such as placer gold, free gold
1 from quartz veins, refractory sulpur-
! cts, silver-lead ores, tellurides, etc, and
a brief statement. of such conditions OF
! occurrence as markedly affect the meth
! DDS of mining and limit the grade OF
ore which can be mined al a profit
g. A statement of the methods OF
treatment employed in each district and
the measure OF success attending them-
Z. Many other interesting subjects of
inquiry have been suggested by various
authorities. which do not seem proper
for an annual exclusively statistical re-
port, but which could properly be in
cluded in a report covering the mining
industry in its entirety.
Among them is the suggestion to in
clude a technical inquiry into the va
rious processes of extraction of gold
and silver, such as the cyanide process,
chlorination, the corresponding bromide
process, and even d more exact study
of amalgamating methods. an entirely
different line of work would be still
more valuable, viz, to determine the
number of persons employed in inning
operations, the wages paid, and other
items of expense leading to a. statement
of the cost of producing gold and sill
yer: but il seems proper to exclude all
these subjects, leaving the technical
themes for the papers of associations
of mining engineers, and the consider
alton of cost TO a decennial inquiry.
No division of the gold product into
placer gold and vein gold has been at
tempted for years, yet the continued
demand for this information indicates
the advisability of publishing it. Placer
gold has in history been the source from
which sensationally large supplies of
gold have come at short notice and
with marked effect upon the gold mar
ket, while vein gold has been the prod
uct of slow development. with the IN
vestment of much capital and the es-
tablishment of contributory industries
In conclusion, the report says: The
intelligent investment of capital IN
precious-metal mines, on business rules
and without special speculative excite
ment. depends essentially upon infor-
NATION lllpaTIallH collSClSu diiu "iuc4y
distributed as to the characteristics
of the ores which furnish most gold
and silver in each district The adapt
ability of these ores to various meth
DDS of treatment must be simply but
clearly set forth. This can best be done
by a few general statements concern
ing each camp. showing what processes
have contributed most gold for each
kind of ore.
THE information demanded from the
statistics of gold and silver points US
to the mines themselves as the necessa-
ny source 1t will constantly become
more difficult to collect the statistics
by the present method alone. To collect
them from the mines will be difficult
at first, but will steadily grow easier 4
as the mining interests organize and
and the proportion furn-
ished by wandering prospectors and
other small operators grows smaller.