2 QUICKSILVER DEPOSITS OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE. 



extraction equall}' expensive, the cost of production would be substantially- 

 proportional to the abundance of the metals in nature. The weight of quick- 

 silver produced is considerably in excess of the weight of silver. Were the 

 quicksilver ])roduct about three-fifths of the actual amount and were the 

 richer deposits only worked as a consequence of this restriction, the metal 

 could be produced still more cheaply. The cost of reduction per kilogram, 

 however, is trifling for quicksilver, but very cousiderabic for silver. jMaking 

 due allowance for this fact, it appears that quicksilver must be three or more 

 times as abundant in nature as silver. 



The quantity of metal produced bears an intimate but not a simple 

 relation to the selling price. Higher prices would stimulate the production 

 of quicksilver, but restrict consumption for certain ])urposes and to a certain 

 extent. With some metals decrease of price brings witli it a greatly in- 

 creased consumption, l>ut this has not hitherto proved to be the case with 

 quicksilver, which is employed for very few pui'poses in large quantities. 

 The consequence is that, in comparison with the quantity produced, quick- 

 silver is the cheapest of metals; or, in other words, the value of the total 

 product is very small. Tlie total weight of quicksilver produced in the past 

 tliirty-six years is less than twice as great as that of silver, but the total 

 value of the quicksilver is only one-sixteenth that of the silver. The world 

 has yielded nearly one-sixteenth as much gold as quicksilver during the past 

 thirty-six years, but the total gold product is worth thirty times as much as 

 that of quicksilver. Tin is a metal sharing some properties witli quicksilver, 

 and, if one compares frozen quicksilver with tin, tlie likeness is much stronger. 

 The tin produced in thirtj'-six years weighs about six times as much as the 

 quicksilver; but, because the demand for tin is insatiable, the price remains 

 suflficientlv high to make the total value of the tin more than twice as great 

 as that of quicksilver. 



These relations may be succinctly expressed in a table sucli as the fol- 

 lowing, which gives the total weights and values, the value of a kilogram of 

 each metal, and the relative quantities when gold, silver, and quicksilver are 

 each regarded as unity. Silver is now worth mucli less tlian tlie mint value; 

 but, for a great part of the period which has elapsed since 1850, this metal 



