MINERAL RESOURCES OF UNITED STATES 5 



the Unioiiville, Kelso Run, Belmont, White Pine, Eureka, 

 Esmeralda, and Pioche districts in Nevada, the Owyhee in 

 Idaho, the Cottonwood and Bingham in Utah, and the silver 

 districts of Colorado. The year 1860 brought the discovery 

 of petroleum in Pennsylvania, to be followed many years later 

 by the utilization of natural gas. 



The development of the copper mines of Arizona began 

 seriously in 1880 and 1881, with the opening of the Bisbee, 

 Globe, and Clifton districts, to which later on the United 

 Verde was added. Butte rushed into prominence at about 

 the same time. Later in the seventies Leadville began to 

 pour forth its mass of argentiferous lead. 



It may be stated in a general way that enterprise did not 

 seriously turn to the mining industry in this country until the 

 second half of the last century, and that its greatest achieve- 

 ment has been crowded into the last thirty years. I do not 

 propose to weary you with an endless array of figures. Suffice 

 it to say that the value of the mineral product of the United 

 States had risen to about $370,000,000 in 1880, and reached 

 $620,000,000 in 1890, and according to the statistics collected 

 by Dr. David T. Dav of the United States geological survey, 

 exceeded $1,400,000,000 in 1903. This includes $500,000,- 

 000 for coal, $344,000,000 for pig iron, $91,000,000 for copper, 

 $73,000,000 for gold, $94,000,000 for petroleum, $67,000,000 

 for stone, $33,000,000 commercial value, for silver, $35,000,- 

 000 for natural gas, and $23,000,000 for lead. 



We stand first as producers of coal, our output in 1902 

 having been 301,590,000 short tons. Great Britain following 

 with 254,000,000 tons, and Germany with 165,000,000 tons, 

 our percentage of the world's total being about 31 per cent. 

 In petroleum we have been racing with Russia, occasionally 

 first and sometimes second. In 1901 we furnished a little 

 over 69,000,000 barrels to the world's total of 165,000,000 

 barrels, our percentage being 41.9 per cent, as compared with 

 Russia's 41.5 per cent. 



In the manufacture of pig kon we have now reached the 

 point that our production is greater than that of our largest 

 rivals, Great Britain and Germany, put together, with Bel- 



