The Washington herald., 1908-01-04
CRUISE OF THE GOLD FLEET
By FREDERIC ]. HASKIN.

The minis of the United States added
/ $40 600 90 in gold coin TO the circulating
medium OF the nation during the months
/ of November and December. This means
an increase Of nearly nifty cents per capita
/ in money circulation IN only two months.
4 The gold supply of the world has been
doubled i'm the past ten years. The great
inflow Of gold has had its effect upon the
/ financial affairs Of every man and woman
/ in the world. In the United States that
effect has been marked. A question now
10 be asked is: What viii be the effect
on our finances Of stln further remarkable
increases in gold?' That question is made
the more significant because Of the cruise
Of the fleet Of gold ships that are mining
great quantities Of gold from places that
would not have attracted a gold-seeker
ten years ago.
Whether the answer 30 this question
shall be that it viii stiu further advance
our wonderful prosperity, or whether it
shall be that gold will suffer the fate
of silver and be demonetlzed, the average
man is willing TO welcome all that can
bee found So long as the governments
OF the world continue to stamp its arbi-
trary value on its face and declare II TO
be money, gold VIII not go begging. how
ever much its actual purchasing power
may decrease.
The gold dredge can make Il living out
of gold-bearing gravel carrying only two
cents a ton OF the precious metal. Sup
pose some person took a ton Of gravel
and earth and dumped il on your floor.
Then into that pile he would carefully
mix one-fftieth Of the gold dust he could
obtain by filing away a one dollar gold
piece. Then he would say TO you. Take
that earth and gravel and go through it
and give NE back that gold. and leave
but one-thousandth part Of it in the pile.
Does the difficulty Of such a task appeal
20 your Imagination
Man could not accomplish the work
with his hands. for he would require so
long time that the cents in gold would
not buy him enough TO eat while he
worked at the task. But machinery?
That is different. Man has taken the
ship on which Jason sailed for the golden
fleece. he has taken iron and steel from
the hearts of the hills. and has made
endless chains of powerful digging buck
cts, he has taken centrifugal force and
compelled il 10 wash the gold from its
hiding place-he has made the gold
ship" The god ship asks for only enough
water TO float her at the first She VIII
dig her own way before her and forever
close her wake behind The enormous
chains Of buckets scoop up great quaint
ties Of gravel. The gravel is dumped into
a whirlpool Of v ater and washed There
are screens and screens, and finally all
those minute PARTICLES Of the precious
yellow metal are washed down over the
rifles. Cocoanut mating catching and
holding the gold, or the mercury Of the
amalgam plates attracting il and incOr-
porating H.
It Is all done rapidly. the water is used
over and over again. and the buckets
keep on digging. digging. and the gold
exhausted tailings are piled out behind
When the days work is done. If the gold
ship has saved as much as or S cents
per cubic yard from all the gravel it has
handled. then ali expenses have been
paid. If it saves more than that the adj
ditional gold IS profit. Thus gravel bear
ing only Is cents to the cubic yard is
wonderfully profitable. In California there
has been a steady decline for several
years in the amount OF gold produced by
the older methods of mining, but the
gold ships have more than made eP the
difference.
But Of course, the gold feet is stiu
cruising I'm what are, for it, easy waters
and Philadelphia's gold-bearing clay isl
still safe The benches along the rivers
in California and ia Alaska, where the
waters have been deposidng gold gravel
torn from the mountains through count
less ages, are the most attractive cruts-
ing places for these strange treasure
ships The gold dredge has come into
its prominence within the present de-
cade and its fruits have increased
twenty fold within the past seven years.
But the dTedge is not an entirely new
thing. In the JJs there was gold
dredge at Orovile Cal, where a great
feet of gold ships is now at work. Forty
yaars ago the gold dredge was put to
work in New Zealand, where the natives
scooped up gravel by hand from float
ing raft Those early attempts were
in that they did not pro-
duce dividends. but they were sue
cesses. in that they gave birth to the
idea. Their failures were warnings: their
possibilities were guides for the gold
ship pilots and crews OF to-day
The first successful dredge in this coun-
try was at Bannock Mont The first
dredge of the type now most used was
built in California In 1887 That was the
real beginning. Improvements have been
made and are being made all the time. /
and the gold ships are now mechanically |
successful, and what is more, they are
dividend producers. In California, fori
there were great deposits of