THE DECREASE OF GOLD. 507 



Bohemia, and the rivers in Sweden. More than twenty thousand 

 pounds came formerly from Spain, but these mines are exhausted. It 

 came next from the Sj^anish Indies, first from San Domingo, then from 

 other parts, but that also has stopped. It comes at present from Peru, 

 formerly three millions annually, at present five, six, and eight millions, 

 but it will not be long until these mines also will be exhausted and 

 abandoned." The prophecy of the old book has been fulfilled. 



Humboldt entertained great hopes of New Granada and Colombia, 

 where precious metals are found, but, in spite of English capital and 

 highly-improved machinery, the mines do not produce beyond two 

 millions annually. 



The Indians of Chili, Peru, and the entire western coast of South 

 America, formerly dug much gold from the alluvium ; they obtained 

 plenty of silver afterward, but little gold, while at the present time 

 they produce ten or twelve times less than at the time of Humboldt's 

 visit. The total production of South America, except Brazil, from 

 1500 to 1875, was about thirteen hundred million dollars. We can 

 nowhere follow the history of mining better than in Brazil. Toward 

 the end of the sixteenth century the inhabitants of Sao Paulo were 

 struck with the gold trinkets worn by the savages, and they began 

 washing. In the year 1697 Bartholomeo Bueno found rich gold 

 deposits in the province of Minas Geraes, in consequence of which 

 many adventurers went there, and a war broke out between the Paul- 

 ists and the Portuguese. The governor finally succeeded in restoring 

 peace, and gold-washing was prosecuted according to a fixed system, 

 whereby the mines became very productive. Towns were built for 

 instance, Villa Rica and people flocked from all regions. The prov- 

 ince of Matto Grosso, after the year 1720, ceased to produce gold, and 

 in the eighteenth century Brazil occupied the place of California in 

 the nineteenth. Minas Geraes alone, in the middle of the eighteenth 

 century, produced seven, and Brazil ten, million dollars per year, but 

 the deposits were soon exhausted, and toward 1820 the entire produc- 

 tion of Brazil had dwindled to five hundred thousand dollars. The 

 leads were next commenced to be worked, but without success, in spite 

 of the vast sums expended upon them by large capitalists. Brazil, 

 which a hundred years ago excelled any other country in the produc- 

 tion of gold, has in this respect become fully impoverished within the 

 last fifty years. Its total production, from the end of the sixteenth 

 century up to to-day, amounts to one hundred and sixty million dol- 

 lars. 



In ancient times, and in the beginning of the middle ages, Africa 

 was known as the gold country. Herodotus speaks of the Carthagini- 

 ans, who gathered gold on the other side of the Pillars of Hercules ; 

 the Arabian geographer El Edrisi (1154) speaks of gold in Wangara, 

 the source of the Niger, and the same mention is made by the Moor, 

 Leo Africanus, who was baptized by Pope Leo X ; he had explored 



