SILVER 275 



From 400 to 500 tons of the metal is at present being consumed 

 by the world in manufactures and the arts. Such parts as are used 

 in photography and by the chemist may be regarded as lost, and it 

 amounts to as much as 50 tons per year. The balance becomes table 

 ware, jewelry and ornaments. About 5,000 tons goes into coinage. 

 Fifty per cent, of this is minted in Asia, approximately twenty-five 

 per cent, in Europe, fifteen per cent, in Mexico and South America 

 and the balance in the United States. All this, except the coinage of 

 India,. Mexico and Japan, is bought by the various governments at the 

 commodity value of the metal, and after taking the stamp of the 

 mint goes out to the public on the basis of the old ratio of 16 to 1 

 as compared with gold. The difference is absorbed as profit, under the 

 name of seignorage. This profit to the treasuries of the civilized 

 nations is now amounting to something more than $10,000,000 per 

 annum, and is somewhat of the nature of a fraud on the people, 

 though with the existing conventions in the matter of money and 

 coinage it is not easy to say how the fraud can be avoided. 



Considered wholly by itself, and from the standpoint of its purely 

 physical properties, silver is yet a precious metal. Its pure white color 

 and soft luster can not be approached in aluminum, tin, nickel or any 

 other metal, and though it tarnishes quickly, and has not the resistant 

 qualities of gold to the action of acids and of sulphur, yet no metal 

 we at present know of can take its place for small coinage, or for 

 ordinary table ware and decorative purposes. Aside from these uses 

 it is the best conductor of electricity of all known substances, and 

 there may be a special future for it in the wonderful -development of 

 that new servant of man. Perhaps as the science of wireless telegraphy 

 and telephony advances silver may come to be employed in the repro- 

 duction of sound waves when great distances must be bridged, or ex- 

 treme delicacy of enunciation is desired. Yet copper approaches it 

 so closely in electric sensitiveness, and is so much more abundant, and 

 consequently cheaper, that we are not likely to do much of our talking 

 in the future over silver wires. 



The world's crop of silver during the } r ear 1907 amounted to about 

 0,400 tons, and came from the following parts of the globe in about 

 the quantities given : 



Tods Tons 



Mexico .' 2,300 Europe 760 



United States 1,900 Australasia 440 



South America 420 Japan 120 



Canada 400 China and Malaysia 15 



Central America 3o Africa 10 



6^00 



