The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1900-07-07
Hudson River Ice Bonanza.
Albany Dispatch to the New York Sun.


Roosevelt as one of the delegates to repre-
sent the State of New York at the Inter
national Mining Congress, held in Mil
waukee, June 19, has addressed letter
to the Governor, in which he declines the
appointment. After regretting his ina
bility to attend the Congress he continues
his letter with the following interesting in
formation
Having in mind the purpose of this
Congress to increase public knowledge
concerning the importance of the various
mining industries of the country, and not
ing that the now much discussed ice ques-
ton has become, at least locally, almost,
if not quite as serious as the late silver
question, | have been led to make some
comparisons of the relative importance Of
the lee and the precious metal industries,
which you may, just now, find incidental
ly interesting, even if otherwise quite
unimportant.
at appears from recently published
statements that the average yearly ice crop
of the Hudson river is between 3, 900, 600
and 4, 900, 900 tons; assuming the lower
figure as net average, clear of waste, and
reckoning the average price paid by all
consumers, large and small, at So per ton
(25 cents per 100 pounds, the total
value realized per annum is SIS, 900, 600.
The value of California s gold, including
the product of placers with that Of quartz
veins, has averaged about S13, 300, 900
annually during the last fifteen years, and
has only slightly exceeded SIS, 5000, 900
during the past two Or three years. Its
annual average value would, therefore, be
considerably less than the value of the
Hudson river ice crop, even after allow
ing a reasonable discount on the above es-
timated quantity and selling price of ice.
''It thus appears that the Hudson river
alone forms every winter a vein of ice COW
ering many square miles in area, nearly as
thick as the average gold-bearing quartz
vein of California, producing annually a
tonnage comparable to and probably ex-
ceeding the tonnage of quartz annually
produced by all the quartz mines of Cali
fornia reckoned together, with a higher
average ton of California quartz yields,
and giving an annual yield for which the
consumers pay, in the aggregate, sum
exceeding the value of the total annual
gold product of the State of California.
''This is apparently true of the Hudson
river alone. The ice crop of Maine, it is
said, sometimes affords an annual profit of
81, 900, 600 to $4,000, 900, which far
AxaaAds tho animal s,rnfiis of gold mining
in California, for it is to be noted that tn G
average cost of producing and marketing a
ton of ice is far less than the average cost
of mining and treating a ton of quartz, and
that the percentage of profit realized in
the production and sale of ice is far great
er than the percentage of available profit
realized from the production of gold.
Furthermore, the quartz vein once ex-
hausted can yield nothing more, produc
ton can only be maintained by more ex-
tended development in length or depth
(naturally at increased cost, or by the
discovery of other veins, while the Hudson
river forms its vein afresh every winter,
the supply of water being practically inf
mite and the formation of the ice bonanza
only question of time and temperature.
ssIt has also been set forth in recently
published statements that the annual con-
sumption of ice in Greater New York and
immediate vicinity amounts to 10, 900, 600
tons. | do not know the ice statistics of
the whole country, but the consumption
in Greater New York can only be COM
paratiyely small part of the consumption
of the United States; and 25, 900, 600
tons of ice at 81 per ton (pfobably much
below the average price to consumers)
would amount to s10O, 900, 900, consid
erably exceeding in commercial value the
total annual product Of precious metal, gold
and silver reckoned together, from the
whole OF the United States, which in 1898
amounted to 500. 5S1 400"