GOLD STANDARD AND GOLD PRO DUCTION. The metal gold is the only sub stance of which the earth is composed that is freely accepted in return for all services and in exchange for all other kinds of property by every race in the world. In other words, it is the world's standard of value; the one com modity the market for which cannot be glutted; the one substance that is everywhere accepted not only without compulsion and without limit as to quantity, but that is also the particular ob of universal desire. As a mineral it has a history that is probably almost as old as the human race that has fought for its possession with so much avidity. No less than 1,400 years before the dawn of the Christian era, the Greeks were using it as an object of ornamenta tion, and yet even they were not the originators of the practice. They had borrowed the cus tom of wearing gold to make the person more attractive from the Egyptians, a people that had decked its women in gold more than 1,000 years before the Greeks had dreamed of utiliz ing it in this manner. It was, of course, the use of gold as an ornament that first suggested its subsequent use as money, and that finally made it the standard upon which the coinage of the world is based.
Among the many things for which the 19th century will always be memorable not the least important will be the fact that it was during this period that the single gold standard was adopted by practically all the civilized nations of the earth. Beginning with a monetary sys tem that, in a broad sense, may be described as the double standard of silver and gold, the nations of the ancient world maintained this method until sometime in the Middle Ages. From about the beginning of the 7th century, however, and until sometime in the 13th cen tury, the single silver standard of coinage pre vailed, and, when the double standard was then reintroduced, it remained in vogue until the 19th century, when the progressive financiers began to appreciate the need of a better system.
England was the nation that led the way in the work of exchanging the double standard of silver and gold for the single gold standard, but, while this was done in 1816, other coun tries were slow to follow in her footsteps. It was not until 1854, therefore, that the double standard was superseded by the single standard in Portugal, but Germany followed in 1871; the United States, in 1873; the Scandinavian States, in 1874; Holland, in 1875; France and the Latin Union, in 1876; Austria-Hungary, in 1892; British India, in 1893; Japan, in 1898 and Rus sia, in 1899. The gold standard also prevails in Rumania, Serbia, Turkey and Egypt, but, while all the South and Central American countries, with the exception of Bolivia, Colom bia, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Salvador and Paraguay have adopted it, most of them are almost hopelessly entangled in a mass of irredeemable paper. It may thus be seen that, among all the nations of importance, China and Mexico alone failed to adopt the single gold standard during the 19th century.
It was not alone for this reason that the 19th century was closely identified with the history of gold, however, for it is this period that will always be noted for having been the occasion of two great events in the world's record; the greatest discovery of gold and the greatest production of gold. According to the statistics prepared by the director of the mint, the world's production of gold during the first half of the 19th century was $787,463,000, while for the second half it was $6,909,040,000.
At the beginning of the century the most im portant gold-producing countries were Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Argentina, in the western hemisphere, and Russia and Hun gary in the eastern hemisphere. With the ex ception of small quantities that were obtained in Africa and from the East Indies there was practically no other places where the •metal could be found. During the period from 1801 to 1810, the average annual yield of these countries was not in excess of $12,000,000, and fully two-thirds of this amount came from the American mines. Owing to the revolutionary disturbances that broke out in Mexico and throughout South and Central America during the period between 1810 and 1824, the output of gold, as well as that of silver, was greatly re duced. At this time the world's production of gold declined until it reached the comparatively low average of about $7,600,000 per annum, an amount which, in the opinion of WilliamJacob, one of the best authorities of that period, was insufficient to supply the quantity used in the arts and to make good the loss by accidents, such as .by abrasion, shipwreck, etc. As the restoration of peace was quite generally effected about this time, however, disaster was avoided for the increase in the production of gold, which began at once, steadily continued. Even the average output of Russia commenced to show some remarkable gains, her production between 1837 and 1848 averaging more than $12,500,000 per annum, which was in excess of the production of the entire world at the beginning of the century. The following table gives the details of the world's production dur ing the first half of the century as computed by the director of the mint : The era of gold discovery dates from 1848, when James Wilson Marshall, on 19 January, discovered a small lump of gold in the tail-race of Sutter's sawmill, in El Dorado County, Cal. Naturally such a discovery led to a search, not only of the bed of the stream but in the adjoin ing ground, and, in both places, rich deposits of the precious metal were found. The story of the rush that followed this find of new gold fields is a familiar tale to readers of American history. The news spread like wildfire through California, down the Pacific Coast to South America, and finally east to the Atlantic States, and so to Europe. In response to these tid ings gold hunters flocked from every inhabitable portion of the globe, with the result that the gold production of California alone amounted to $36,000,000, or a sum equal to that which the annual average of the entire world had attained during the preceding decade. A year later it had reached the sum of $56,000,000, and it was in that year that a similar discovery of placer gold was made in New South Wales, which was followed shortly by a still more important find in the colony of Victoria. New mines were also discovered in Russia during this period, and as all these discoveries were attended by great public excitement and heavy immigration the new mines were so well worked that the production of Australia and New Zealand soon aggregated $65,000,000, while that of Russia alone was in excess of $25,000,000.