318 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE.. 
for twenty years about $12,000,000. Therefore the unexampled; decline of 
silver — a rent worth $1,000 in 1500, was worth only $305 in 1568 — could not 
have been alone the consequence of the increased amount of silver, but probably 
more the diminished demand. The heretofore flourishing trade of Venice and of 
the Hansa was rapidly decHning. 
The growing disturbances culminated in long and disastrous wars and des- 
troyed the former wealth of the nations. 
At the end of the seventeenth century the returns of the rich mines in Brazill 
began to come to Europe. Humboldt has calculated that all the silver brought 
from America to Europe during the 300 years followed its discovery, joined to- 
gether, would form a solid ball of sixty-three feet in diameter, and would repre- 
sent together with the gold somewhat more than $2,133,000,000. 
By degrees the mines of the old world gave also more important returns.. 
Konigsberg, in Norway, which was believed to be exhausted, and was very near 
being sold for a small sum, produced large amounts of silver, among them nug- 
gets of pure silver of 560 ounces weight, and continued to be productive. I can 
not omit to state here that the shores of New England are very similar to those 
of Sweden and Norway. Going from Boston to Salem you are reminded strongly 
of the shore of North Sweden, and the shores of Maine remind you also of those 
of Norway and its fiords. The rocks are similar, and the presumption of similar 
veins of pure silver, just as in Konigsberg, at a depth of 1,200 feet, is by no' 
means improbable. 
The mines in Russia, in the Ural and in Siberia, did not return much gold to 
1 814. In that year large quantities of gold were discovereed in the alluvium, 
similar to the formation in California, and in the Ural ; in 1839 in the Kolywan dis- 
trict, and in 1836 near the Lake Baikal. Those layers produced, in twenty-nine 
years ending with 1847, more than $160,000,000. 
It was to be supposed, after the precedent in the sixteenth century, that so 
sudden and large an increase of the amount of gold should be followed by a sud- 
den decline of its value and in its relation to silver. Neither advanced ; on the 
contrary, the proportion of gold to silver rose from 15.2 to 15.6 in 1823. The 
suggestion that this may have been the consequence of the decline of silver is 
refuted by the price of grain varying during this time only a very small fraction 
of a mark. The discovery of gold in California and silver in Nevada, and the 
immense return of all mines in the United States, are so well known that it would 
be bringing coals to Newcastle to speak about them here. 
I may only remark that the first quotation of the gold returns to Congress, 
to July, 1849, amounted to $5,500,000, which is only one-third of the amount 
produced in Russia in 1847. The fact that gold had not declined in consequence 
of this immense production justified the presumption that even the new discovery 
would not seriously affect its value. Before the discovery of CaHfornia Hum- 
boldt had stated that all known mines produced, of precious metals, every year, 
about $67,000,000. According to the last United States census, now $182,000,- 
000 are produced. I may add only, that the statement of the Director of th 
