1 82 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



amounting to several million dollars yearly, and aggregating, up to 

 1910, approximately $150,000,000. At the present time, the old placers 

 have been largely exhausted, but the gold-bearing veins are extensively 

 vt^orked, especially at the celebrated Homestake Mine. 



Effect of Discoveries of Silver on Gold Mining, 1859-1890 



While the gold of the west was thus being found and poured into 

 the mints and commerce of the world, numerous discoveries of silver 

 ores, often of immense value, were being made in the Rocky Moun- 

 tains and the Great Basin. The first great discovery of silver ore in 

 the United States was that at the Comstock lode, but others followed 

 rapidly, until the multitude of mines opened between 1860 and 1885, 

 made the United States the greatest silver producer in the world. Silver 

 was then valuable, the deposits were larger than had ever been known 

 to exist before, and the profits were immense. Towns grew up based 

 entirely on the silver industry, and silver was the chief topic of the 

 thoughts, conversation and daily pursuit of the people; the prospector 

 looked only for silver, and a class of people began to grow up who knew 

 silver ores but not much about other ores, so that many gold deposits 

 were passed over, to be discovered years later. 



This condition of affairs had the effect of stimulating the silver in- 

 dustry to its greatest extent, almost to the total exclusion of the search 

 for gold, and discovery after discovery of silver deposits in the Eocky 

 Mountains and the Great Basin was the result. First came the Com- 

 stock lode in 1859, and then followed rapidly between the years 1860 

 and 1885 the Reese River, Eureka, White Pine, Pioche and the Calico 

 districts in Nevada; the Park City, Little Cottonwood Canon, Frisco 

 and Tintic districts in Utah; the Leadville, Silver Cliff, Aspen, San 

 Juan districts in Colorado ; Butte City, Montana ; Tombstone, Arizona ; 

 Silver City and Lake Valley, New Mexico; Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and 

 in more recent years, Creede and Tonopah. Many other regions of 

 silver discoveries might be mentioned, but the above list shows the vast- 

 ness that the industry had reached. 



Effect of Depreciation of Silver on Gold Mining, 1875-1890 

 The enormous production of silver, accompanied by increasing out- 

 puts in Mexico and elsewhere, brought about the inevitable result and 

 caused the fall in the value of the metal. At the time of the opening of 

 the Comstock lode in 1859, the price of silver was $1.36 per ounce. 

 Until then silver had been very scarce, and in spite of the enormous 

 output of the Comstock and other mines discovered later, the price of 

 the metal held up wonderfully until 1873, ranging in value from $1.36 

 to $1.29. The great flood of silver that was being produced, however, 

 finally made itself felt, and slowly but surely the price fell. In the 



