The Boise citizen. (Boise, Idaho) 1906-1910, 1910-03-25
An Over Supply of Gold

of gold He presents statistical table which shows that
JFs production of the precious metal has increased from
o 700 in 1890 $254 300 in 1900 and $457 $50 in
o And the worlds stock of gold, visible supply has in
d from 1890 from $3778,35oooo to $765ooOOO0O 1890
- fellows these startling figures with the following observations
In until about 1885, only placer surface gold mined
M free gold deposited in the beds Of streams sands and in
M evces of rocks Placer mining, mainly in and
ns still furnishes material, though not large percentage of
worlds output Formerly this aluya gold separated from
sands and graves containing by washing them pans cradles
A and uces In 1852, the hydraulic method was first en-
hd in California. By this giant of water
- AGAINST the side of mountain washes everything before
The gold settles to the bottom of the tunnel suce through
which the gravel sand and water flow. In 1889 dredges,
ors were first used Australia To-day and electric
s produce considerable portion of the worlds output
The second important stage the production of gold that
B the extraction of gold by of its
6 for mercury This process, used very extensively until
m was applicable to reemlng orehat is to that when
crushed usually by stamp ms yield up either floating god
cold that will form amalganae with mercury.
The third stage of gold production, which began 1887
M one that responsible for something like twords OF the
present output of gold 1t marks the introduction of the chorna
m and cyandng processes which applied to refractory
m that is to ores that contain much sulphur arsenic bsnut
M etc. that the gold in them will not aagamae with mercury
Chornaton combining gold with chlorine to OBJ
tain soluble chloride of god from which is then easy to e
tract the metal says L. De Launay, his recent book The
Worlds Cold Preliminary this process the are crushed
then roasted to drive out the ron sulphur arsenic etc lhS
although largely employed IN Colorado and Australia has
not as yet extensively used has the candng process but
and cheaper methods of producing chlorine, may yet
become important than cyanidng is The latter fails
aerous that contain certain metals like "copper" which
the operation and acid or akal ores 1t is on these
s-very numrousha the chorinaon process now mostly
used
Canding consists solely employing the weknown solu
& gold cyanide of potassium, and in then precptatng the
gold by reduction eectroysis says De Launay 1t was first
applied 1887 1t used IN all OF the mines on the Rand and
and quite generally all the world Without this process very
few mines the Rand would make profit With they produce
0O000 of gold year total net profit of $64O0OO0O or
by- three the dollar.
The candng and chornaton processes have worked reyo
ton the production of gold the past twenty years The out
put which before had been stationary declining for thirty years.
doubled each decade since. There is at least TAR prospect at
output will double again by 1920 The basis for this state
t found the fact that the workable refractory or upde
ores as they frequently called much more extensive Pe
maps 100 1000 times than the ee-mlng In TACT there
literally mountains of these owgrade refractory oretor near
all are lowgade containing from one dollar to tve or twenty
a per ton The average per ton IN the lranSVaal OF du
@ was about seven dollars last year 1t has been decs d
| cents for five years. showing that lower and lower grade
@ are being protaby worked Of the lower the grade
greater the quantity of available In the Homesae mme
this country producing less than two dollars to the ton is
g worked and is yielding big profits The supply OF very low"
grade ore is, in fact, practically inexhaushbe .
view of these facts it does not require prophet 10
increase in the put of gold If no important new neu
PRODUCTION are found in the next decade Ana IS ledss
n that the of increase the next decade VIII De as se
@ was the last and that by 1920 or 1925 the output WI" ~
sPOOC000,000 year.
Now will have to be considered what allowance should De
Aue because other things will not remain unchanged
FROM the fact that prices declined from 1870 to 1892 uus
% % time the worlds monetary gold increased over forty pei @
from the further fact that prices advanced about forty per cent
@ 1895 1870 while the gold supply increased over egng p
n we may safely infer that oher things have not always
aned the same
Both because of business expansion and of the general use
% throughout the world, the quantity Of goods foF WHICH %
nsed is apparently, increasing at an average OF dp9u
have m year This being true the worlds socN ~ A the
, @ increase 2H per year to keep prices stable N
se increase from 1870 to only about e pei @
M surprising that prices declined 30 per cent during |
As the increase in the worlds gold supply has averaged aI
n lsr cent since 1895 it is surprising that prices ~
sd ABOUT 40 per since then similar ana even
% ~ may be expected in the ten twenty years
a may be noted that gold supply and prices do not aN
s muaneous Apparently the price advances oom n,t was
@ @ng rapidly from 1890 to 1896 prices continued to aes