The finding of the Comstock lode in Nevada was the next great discovery of the precious metal. This fissure vein, which was fully four miles long, was in rock of the Tertiary Age, and was situated at the base of Mount David son, in the Virginia range, an offshoot of the Sierra Nevada. In the central part of the fissure its width is about 3,000 feet, while the gangue, or veinstone, is quartz, not uniformly distributed in the fissure, but coagulated in large bodies commonly known as ((bonanzas." Apparently the metal had been deposited in this place in solution, while some idea of the tremendous magnitude of the deposit may be obtained from the fact that, since 1861, the year when it was first scientifically worked, the Comstock lode has yielded more than $470,000, 000 of bullion. At the value ratio of 1 to 16, 40 per cent of the bullion produced was gold, while 60 per cent was silver. As the richest ore bodies of the lode had been exhausted dur ing the seventies, the annual yield gradually de clined until, in 1882, it was less than $1,500,000, but as attention was then turned to the work ing of such lower-grade ores as had previously been neglected, the annual production gradually increased until it had again attained a figure of several millions.
It was about this time (1884) that there was discovered in the Witwatersrand of the Trans vaal a deposit of gold that was destined to sur pass in magnitude, not the Comstock alone, but every other find of the precious metal that the world had ever seen. Here the country rock is a bed of sandstone, interlaminated with deposits of conglomerate, known to the Dutch as ubanket." It is this conglomerate that car ries the gold, the average being 10 pennyweights per ton of material. Borings to the depth of 3,500 feet, however, have found the proportion of gold in this reef undiminished, while the outcroppings of the reef have been traced for a distance of 40 miles. The working of these mines gave the Transvaal a gold production of $78,070,761, in 1898. Then came the interrup tions due to the war with Great Britain, in 1899, and this, with other disturbances, made a full resumption of the work impossible prior to about 1904, although it was believed that the output of the Rand would yet equal the sum of $150,000,000. It reached this vast amount in 190& The most surprising discovery of modern times, however, was the finding of the gold placers of the Klondike, in 1894. As the ground underneath which this gold is found is perpetu ally frozen, it is quite evident that these de posits must have been laid down at some age when the climate of that region was much warmer than it is at present. To procure this gold to-day, however, it is necessary to sink a shaft through the frozen ground by the use of hot boulders, after which the drift is run by building a fire against the face of the ground, the gravel which is then thrown out being left until summer, when it will thaw suf ficiently to permit of washing and panning. It has been estimated that all the gravel which two men are able to throw out during the eight months of winter can be washed by the same men in two months of the summer. In
spite of the difficulties of mining and the cost of transportation the output of the Klondike region steadily increased until 1900, when it was estimated at more than $20,000,000. Since that time there has been a slight falling off in the product, which, in 1904, was figured as somewhat more than $16,000,000. Similar placer mines have also been discovered in the Cape Nome region of Alaska, and, in 1904, their out put amounted to more than $9,000,000.
At the present time, however, the most im portant gold-bearing district within the borders of the United States is that at Cripple Creek, Colo. This ore is a telluride, known to mineral ogists as calaverite. The country rock is altered andesite, granite, or phonolite, contain ing thinly disseminated iron pyrites and tel lurium minerals. The tellurium at or near the surface is oxidized and the gold when it is visible exists as an ochre-like powder known as gold.(( The tellurium, through a process of roasting, is oxidized, and the gold thus set free in the metallic state is easily solu ble by cyanide or chlorination. The estimated yield of the Cripple Creek district in 1904 was $24,000,000. The increase in the gold produc tion of Australia during recent years has also been a remarkable factor in extending the world's output. During 1900, new workings were established in West Australia, and these, with the product of the older mines, produce an amount of gold, which, in 1904, was approxi mated at nearly $88,000,000.
The statistics showing the world's produc tion of gold during the 58 years up to 1908 are as follows: In concluding this review of the gold situa tion it may be interesting to note the manner in which new supplies of gold operate on prices. From a commercial point of view, gold stands for purchasing power, and yet people do not mark up the prices of their goods merely be cause some new gold mine has been discovered, but the fact that some men have two dollars in their pocket where they had only one dollar be fore creates a greater demand for goods, and it is to this increased demand that the advance in prices is due. It was in this way that the new supplies of gold acted when they brought about an increase in both prices and wages during the 20 years succeeding the discovery of the precious metal in California. This result was not brought about because the community was richer for the privilege of having two dollars instead of one with which to transact a given amount of business, but because, as Professor Cairnes shows, the distributions of the earnings of society was shifted by giving the advantage to wage-earners over rentiers and others hav ing a fixed income. The former had more steady employment and better wages than be fore, while the latter were compelled to pay higher prices for the goods which they con sumed without experiencing a corresponding in crease in their income.