148 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1917. 



eastern Siberia could not rob the Western Hemisphere of its posi- 

 tion as the greatest gold and silver producing region of the world, 

 though finally the developments in a narrow and circumscribed area 

 in South Africa wrested from the Americas their supremacy in the 

 production of gold. 



Nevertheless, the history of the two parts of the groat western 

 continent has been strikingly different. At first the Spaniards ex- 

 tracted vast treasures of silver from Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia, while 

 Colombia and some placer deposits in Peru yielded a smaller quan- 

 tity of gold. A couple of centuries later a stream of gold began to 

 flow from Brazil, the silver production from the countries mentioned 

 above continuing strong in the meanwhile. Later on, the yield of 

 South America diminished, but to offset this there began a wonder- 

 ful series of discoveries in North America. The gold fields of Cali- 

 fornia astonished the world ; and when the cream of these had been 

 skimmed off there began a no less amazing development of the cen- 

 tral cordilleran gold and silver districts, which soon made the United 

 States the greatest producer of the precious metals. Aided by ever 

 improving technique, extensive exploration, and a system of rail- 

 roads, the yield was maintained and increased. Still later followed 

 the discoveries of the gold fields of the arctic region and silenced 

 those who had maintained that the zenith in gold production had 

 passed. Recently the Province of Ontario in eastern Canada rose 

 unexpectedly with offerings of the richest silver ores the world has 

 known, and with new and at first doubtfully accepted gold fields. 



Chile and Bolivia in the middle of the last century added some 

 rich silver mines to their long list of mining districts, and later placer 

 gold began to be extracted in large quantities from the Guianas, 

 but on the whole no such sensational finds were made in the southern 

 continent as had marked the recent history of the northern part, and 

 in many regions the mining of the precious metals fell into a rut, 

 the production being barely maintained or diminished slowly. The 

 latest events indicate an awakening, and a stimulus under the influ- 

 ence of which the production of South America is gradually increas- 

 ing. Large amounts of silver are extracted from copper ores by 

 operations on a large scale, and dredges dig up the gold of Colombia 

 and Tierra del Fuego. 



It can not be doubted that the total yield of the northern continent 

 of gold and silver is larger than that of the southern part. A glance 

 at the table in the Appendix will show that this difference is strongly 

 emphasized at the present time. During the last decade the gold 

 production of North America had a value of $1,338,268,000, while 

 South America yielded only $125,000,000. For silver, Sonth Amer- 

 ica statistics are in less satisfactory shape, but the compilation 

 shows that while in 1913 North America produced this metal to the 



