,3,3. SOME NEW BOOKS. 7" 



pfold occurs in three ways : as sulphides in deep veins, as metallic 

 gold in superficial " gossans" that result from the weathering of veins, 

 and as alluvial gold. Statistics are quoted of the recent productions of 

 the Californian, Dakotan, Australian, Russian, vSiberian, and South 

 African mines ; in a later chapter the figures are also added of 

 the Chinese, Indian, and South American workings. The general results 

 show a steady decrease in the proportion yielded by the alluvial 

 deposits : thus from 1848-1875 these yielded 877 percent., in 1876, 65 

 per cent., and in 1 890 only 44-2 per cent. In the face of the difficulties 

 in the working of the deep sulphide deposits, Professor Suess concludes 

 that we shall always be practically dependent for gold for currency on 

 the alluvia] workings ; mine after mine has been closed as soon as the 

 gossan was removed and the sulphide vein reached. Nor does 

 Professor Suess regard the Transvaal conglomerates as a durable 

 source of supply. During the last few years the total gold supply 

 has declined but slightly, and last year has witnessed an actual 

 increase ; but this is shown to be due to the extraordinary efforts of 

 the miners with such tremendous works as the Amador mining canal, 

 100 miles in length, and the draining of the Feather River by the Big 

 Bend Tunnel nearly three miles long. On pages 98-102 the author 

 has collected the statistics of the amount of gold used in the arts, and 

 concludes that it is now closely equal or slightly in excess of the 

 annual supply. The recent history of silver production is similarly 

 treated and the enormous increase in the output shown. One of the 

 most interesting chapters in the volume is that which records the 

 tragic history of the Comstock lode, from its discovery in 1857 to its 

 final abandonment in 1891. The mines were worked first for gold 

 and then for silver, and the greatest yield for any one year was 

 37,000,000 dollars in 1876. The story of the mine as Professor Suess 

 tells it us is a singularly varied one : the early settlers were rough even 

 for the Western States, and from murder, famine, and sudden death 

 the romantic records of this lode have not been delivered. 



The first part of the volume shows the approaching exhaustion 

 of gold, and the apparently hmitless nature of the supply of silver. 

 The ratios of the production of the two were — i : 5*47 in i860, i : 14 in 

 1880, and I : 23-8 in 1890 ; the value ratios have consequently gradually 

 changed till they stand at i : 22-10 and not i : 15-5, which the older 

 schools of bimetallists declared would be permanent. There is too 

 little gold and too much silver, and with the contraction of the gold 

 currency serious commercial difficulties have arisen ; prices have 

 fallen, bank reserves have only been maintained at the cost of 

 frequent changes in the bank rate ; and, as Professor Suess remarks, 

 any alteration in this immediately affects prices all the world over. 

 Industrial crises have resulted, and it is maintained that they are 

 inevitable until some means be discovered of increasing the medium 

 of exchange. Professor Suess is not a bimetallist, and probably the 

 most valuable part of his book is that in which he emphatically 

 protests that any hope of fixing a definite ratio between gold and 

 silver is quite vain. "This divergence [that between their relative 

 values] lies in the nature of the metals themselves," he tells us on 

 p. 193, " and no statesman and no law can alter their natural 

 relations." Professor Suess, therefore, predicts that the time is 

 coming when silver will be used as the medium of the world's 

 currency. This is not a solution that English financiers are likely to 

 welcome; but while they remain as hopelessly divided as they are at 

 present, it is difficult to conclude whether the truth lies more with 

 the advocates of bimetallism or the champions of the opposite school. 



