GOSSIP ABOUT GOLD. The Production of the Precious Metal Throughout the word.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 57, 5 July 1884, Page 7

GOSSIP ABOUT GOLD. The Production of the Precious Metal Throughout the word.

It is estimated that £240,000,000 of gold and silver have been mined in the West of the United States alone during the past thirty years. The Gold Hill bonanza of the Comstock lode Nevada uad in ten years immediately preceding the last census furnished £40 000,000, £18,000,000 of which was in gold. The lode in 1877 furnished £7,582,200, <>f which £3,554,200 was in gold ; in 1878, £2,060,800 silver, and £1,965, 200 in gold, a total of £4 046,000 ; in 1879, 1,030,000 silver, ami £1,945,000 gold, total £2,983,000 ; 1880, £526, dOO silver, and £1,766,u00 gold, total £2,296,800. The total yield for the twenty-eight mines of the Comstock lode has, from £54,200,000 in 1875, sunk to £3,000,000 in 1881. This decrease had an influence upon the total production of the United States, which was, in 1878, £9,453,421 ; 1879, £7,760,120 ; 1880, £7,200,000. The gold production of Australia has followed about the same course of decrease. In New South Waies alone the production fell from 126,780 ounces in 1876 to 75,492 ounces in 1880. The total Australian gold production in 1876 was 164,889,000 marks. This had decreased in 1879 to 108,000,000 marks. Brazil which one hundred years ago exceeded any other country in the production of gold, has in this respect become impoverished within the last fifty years. It is not probable therefore, that the apprehensions expressed by JVlichel Chevalier Gobdeu, when, in the beginning of 1850, California ami Australia sent annually about £30,000,000 gold into the world, that the world would become inundated with a flood of gold, will ever excite any special alarm. On he other ban I, Prof. Yon B.iesen, considering that America consumes at prosent a great part of the gold with which it formerly inundated the European markets, is led to believe that national vonomists, Wiio ascribe the great periodically occurring crises to the want of ijold, are not altogether wrong, nnd he a Ids that '' since America at present spends alone £2,000,000 annually for Hold and art piouuctious, and, besides this, has reseived a large capital for ■speculative purposes, while its gold proluction is dweHsinir, it may be logically established the gold for commercial purposes must constantly diminish, and financial crises will recur in ever-shorten-ing intenals." — Labour,