GEOLOGY. 297 



PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION OF GOLD. 



A WRITER in the London Athenaeum estimates the supply of gold, for 

 the year 1851, at twenty millions sterling. This amount is made up 

 of fifteen millions from California, four from Russia, and one from 

 Australia. What may be the results for 1852 it is impossible to say. 

 The supply of gold for the present must be considered as unlimited ; 

 and whether five or fifty millions are to be picked up in the course of a 

 twelve-month, depends wholly on the number of heads, hands, and 

 machines devoted to the business of gold-finding. It is quite certain 

 that during the three years in which the California " diggins " have 

 been in operation, a quantity of gold equal to somewhere about thirty 

 millions sterling has been added to the former amount of that metal 

 in existence in the markets of the w r orld ; and it is also certain that 

 no corresponding or equivalent increase has taken place in the supplies 

 of silver. The question then arises : where has this new thirty mil- 

 lions of gold gone to ? The stock of gold in the Bank of England is 

 not higher than at recent periods anterior to the California influx 

 the price of silver as measured in gold is not sensibly higher than it 

 was and the prices of commodities, far from being higher, are 

 decidedly lower. The explanation of all this seems to be very simple. 

 There has been immense absorption of gold into the currencies of 

 America and of France ; and in France, at least, there has been an 

 enormous liberation of silver from the currency in consequence of 

 the introduction of gold. In both America and France the standard is 

 what is called " double ; " that is to say, both gold and silver coins are 

 legal tender according to a certain scale of proportion established 

 by law between the two metals. In America a gold eagle is declared 

 to be equal to so many silver dollars, and in France a gold Napoleon 

 to so many silver francs. The consequence is this, all debtors pay 

 their debts in the cheapest metal. If gold bears an agio, silver of 

 course is used, and gold coins are scarce. If the agio on gold disap- 

 pears, and is transferred to silver, then gold coins are used and silver 

 coins are melted into bullion. This is precisely what has taken place 

 both in France and in America during the last two years to a very 

 great extent. The increased supply of gold has first removed the agio 

 from gold, and then silver has been rapidly abandoned as currency, 

 and gold introduced. Some returns have been published from the 

 French mint, which strikingly show the effect of the change in France. 

 We learn from these that while the coinage of gold in France was less 

 than half a million sterling for some years previous to 1848, it rose in 

 that year to one and a half millions sterling, in 1849 to two mil- 

 lions, in 1850 to three and a half millions, and in the first ten 

 months of 1851 to no less than ten and a quarter millions. In America 

 the facts, we imagine, would be still stronger. We are enabled, 

 therefore, with this evidence before us, to account pretty satisfactorily 

 for the twenty millions of gold already yielded by California. 



SIR R. MURCHISON ON THE GOLD DEPOSITS OF CALIFORNIA. 



SIR R. MURCHISON, at a recent meeting of the London Geological 

 Society, expressed an opinion that the central culminating ridge of 



