KEMP, GEOLOGY AXD ECONOMICS 3^7 



zinc in later j^ears and are now an appreciable bnt not great factor. They 

 may develop somewhat more extensively and may last for a goodly series 

 of years, but the mines are relatively small and are wet, so that explora- 

 tion does not go very .far in advance of mining. 



In ISTew Jersey, the future is best forecast of all. For thirty or forty 

 years, there is no occasion of anxiety. Yet thirty or forty years pass 

 quickly, and then we must prepare to look for other sources. To make 

 the zinc-blende of the Eocky ^lountain region available, an increase in 

 price is practically necessary, otherwise the metal can not stand the 

 freight charges. There is zinc ore in the west, but to what extent we 

 can not well say. It has been avoided rather than sought in most of our 

 mines. Yet we do note symptoms of attention to it. In Butte, Montana, 

 efforts are being made to concentrate it. Shipments of oxidized ores 

 have been made from Xew Mexico for some years past. Until recently 

 large amounts of peculiar appearance seem to have been entirely over- 

 looked at Leadville, Colorado. They now promise to be an important 

 resource. A government commission has reported upon the occurrence 

 of the metal in British Columbia in the hopes of utilizing the ores. From 

 Mexico, too, we learn of explorations for zinc. Conditions are changing 

 in the case of this metal, and more and more it is certain to be brought 

 from remoter localities. But when we look a long way ahead, say for a 

 century, we can not feel free from anxiety. This condition of mind is 

 even more prominent in Europe than in America. The waning of the 

 famous old mines near Aix-la-Chapelle and the apprehensions felt 

 regarding other sources have led to a world-wide search. Zinc ores, for 

 example, now reach Hamburg from the Pacific shore of Siberia, and as 

 other discoveries are made, additional points remote from present smelt- 

 ing centers are likely to be shippers, provided that transportation is by 

 water. aSTevertheless, all these new conditions call for advances in price, 

 and before many years zinc bids fair to take the upward course. 



The precious metals, silver and gold, are the only other two which we 

 may pass in quick review. Silver is a less attractive object of mining 

 than it was twenty years ago, and yet with the improvement of processes 

 of extraction and with the great development of the output of copper and 

 lead in which it is a by-product, the fall in its price of the early nineties 

 has been less disastrous to the amount produced than one might have 

 supposed. Our maximum output was reached in 1892, when it was 

 63,500,000 ounces, valued at $55,662,500. In the same year, about 

 1,600,000 ounces of gold were produced, valued at somewhat over thirty- 

 three millions of dollars. In 1908. wo are credited with approximately 

 fifty-two and a half million ounces of silvoi-. valued at twenty-eight mil- 



