World 



The World's Commod;tie5.-I2. CM and Diamonds 



*-'H,Oi4000 £740,700 £240,000 £IHMO £21.500 tlO,OQO 1900 



The use of GOLD has been known from the earliest times but 

 gold mmmg, as it is understood to-day, dates from the middle of last 

 century, while the cyanide process enabling low-grade mines to he 

 worked at a profit is quite a recent discovery. The simplest method 

 of recovenng gold is placer mining, or the washing of the auriferous 

 alluvial deposits of rivers, fn the modern scientific extraction of 

 gold from the rock an expensive plant is required. The ore is mined 

 and brought to the stamps to be crushed and milled, and the gold 

 IS then separated by the cyanide or other chemical process. The 

 worJd's production of gold in 1851 was estimated at ;£i7,ooo,ooo of 

 which the United States produced /ir,ooo,ooo. In 1905 it had 

 risen to £75,636,000, of which the Transvaal, the United States and 

 Australia together supplied nearly three-fourths. The principal 

 Transvaal goldfieMs are those of the Witwatersrand, Barberton 

 Lydenburg, and Waterberg. The total Transvaal annual production 

 sank, during the recent South African war, from ;£i6,ooo,ooo in 1899, 

 when over 6,000 stamps were at work, to less than ;^2, 250,000 in 1901! 

 At the present time some 7,300 stamps are at work with an average 

 monthly yield of nearly half a milhon ounces of fine gold. Rhodesia 

 also possesses rich goldfields, which are being actively developed. 

 Thcclpef gold mining regions of the United states, where much of the 

 gold ig recovered by hydraulic jet, are Colorado, California and South 



Dakota. In Australia, Western Australia produces annually some 

 2,000,000 ozs. of One gold, more than double that of any other State of 

 the Commonwealth, the East Coolgardie Field being by far the most 

 miportant. Then follow Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales 

 lasmania and South Australia in the order named. In Canada the 

 chief goldfields are the Klondike in the Yukon district, where dredg- 

 ing IS bemg largely resorted to, British Columbia, with the Cariboo 

 placer " district. Nova Scotia and Ontario. The Russia output 

 IS derived mainly from alluvial deposits in the Urals. 



DIAMONDS are merely carbon crystallized by heat and pressure, 

 and their presence is directly attributable to \'olcanic agency. Iii 

 South Africa there is a recognized " blue-ground " rock, and the stones 

 are found in large pockets or pipes. In Brazil, diamonds are found 

 in small pockets over an area thousands of square miles in extent 

 and, being generally in positions inaccessible to extensive machinery,' 

 their profitable working is hampered. The cutting and poHshingof 

 diamonds was till recently a Dutch monopoly, but to-day the stones 

 are also cut in London, Paris, and the United States. ■ South Africa 

 ;n-oduces seven-eighths of the worid's total output, the chief supplies 

 coming from the Kimberiey (De Beers) mines in Cape Colony, while 

 the output from the Orange River Colony (the Jagcrsfontein mines) 

 and the Transvaal (the Premier mine) is developing rapidly. 



WORLD'S TOTAL PRODUCTION OF GOLD 



1905. 



FLUCTUATIONS OFGOtD PRODUCTION in RECENT YEARS. 



01 <n 



^CRLD-5 OUTPUT 

 ^^5. 636,000. 



I , 



TRANSVAAL UNITED STATES 

 iZ0,302,000 Jl 17, ass, 000. 



AUSTRALIA 

 ^17.104,000 



J ' I I ^ I 





[ ' i ^ ' I X J ■ 



L >r i A y \ I I I I F 



► ^ . ■ r , , , I I I 



RUSSIA CftfJAOA MEXICO INDIA PHODESIA OTHER 



^4.800 000 S2£a&.OOOi2,70D,OOO 5^,3^7,000 :fL466O00 5?"?!^'" 



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MiNiansDf£ 



T 890-1 G05, 



£24,TflO,O00 

 £27.^16,000 



cao,5ss,ooo 



£32,e[r,ODO 

 j;37,744,000 



£4r,52r,ooo 



£40,252,000 

 £43,480,000 



£59,7ea,ooo 



£e3,SI&,000 

 £53, 3 Q, 000 

 £&4,373,000 



£ei,e7e.ooo 



£67,313,000 



£72,322,000 

 £75,030,000 



21 



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