the uses of currency and the arts. M. Chevalier estimates the amount as $8,500,000,000, of which one-third was gold. An eminent English authority, Mr. M. W. Newmarch, states the probable quantity held in Europe and America at that date to be $6,800,000,000, with a similar proportion of silver to gold. The difference between these estimates, or $1,700,000,000, may be accepted as a moderate statement of the quantities of gold and silver in those countries of Asia and elsewhere which have not been closely related to European and American commerce. Since 1848 the average production of the world has amounted to $200,000,000, but the proportions of gold and silver have been reversed; fully two-thirds of the aggregate being gold. The treasure product of 1867 is slightly increased above this average, and may be briefly stated as follows: A brief analysis of the reasons for this estimate will be given. The commissioner upon the mineral statistics of the Pacific slope has pre-. sented, in his general communication to the department, sufficient details of the treasure product of the United States, and the causes of its decline in comparison with former years. In regard to Mexico and South America, Humboldt estimated the annual produce of the mines of Spanish America at the beginning of the present century to be $43,500,000. This amount was increased from 1800 to 1809, fully reaching $50,000,000 per annum, but in the last-mentioned year the contest began which terminated in the dissolution of the connection between Spain and her American colonies. The convulsions and insecurity arising out of this struggle, the proscription of the old Spanish families to whom the mines principally belonged, who repaired with the wrecks of their fortunes, some to Cuba, some to Spain, and some to Bordeaux and the south of France, caused the abandonment of several of the mines and an extraordinary falling off in the amount of their produce. There are no means of estimating the precise extent of this decline, but, according to Jacob, who collected and compared the existing information on the subject, the total average produce of the American mines, inclusive of Brazil, during the 20 years ending with 1829 may be estimated at $20,000,000 a year, being less than half their produce at the beginning of the century. The discovery of new mines, and the greater cheapness and more abundant supplies of quicksilver obtained from California, have conspired, with other causes, to increase the produce of the South American mines, until, in 1867, they have nearly reached the productiveness of 1800; and the above estimate of their produce may be distributed as follows: The latest and most satisfactory authority upon the production of Australia consists of a memorial from representatives of the different colonies to the home government upon postal communications between Australia and the mother country, dated April 1, 1867, in which occurs a table of exports of the associated colonies during 1865, giving the item of gold as follows: Victoria New South Wales. New Zealand.. Total £6, 190, 317 2,647,663 2,226,474 101,352 11, 165, 811 It is a remarkable fact that the single colony of Victoria produced, in 1852, a gross amount of £14,866,799, far exceeding the entire aggregate from all the Australian colonies at this time. New South Wales, in 1852, produced £3,000,000 also in excess of the present productions of that colony. Zealand has recently gone far to supply the deficiencies, and other gold fields are in course of discovery, and hence the foregoing aggregate of $61,000,000, adding to the exports of the different colonies about $6,000,000, may be accepted as a probable statement of the Australian treasure product. The annual production of Russia was stated, in 1858, by J. R. McCulloch, in a treatise upon the precious metals, to be 87,500,000 francs, or £3,500,000, slightly exceeding the foregoing estimate. Late discoveries of placer mines upon the Amoor, in eastern Siberia, will probably lead, during 1868, to large additions to the annual average hitherto prevailing. Mr. McCulloch estimated the total supply of gold and silver in 1858 as follows: If to this amount we add $25,000,000, representing the production of Japan, China, India, Polynesia, and Africa, the total amount will be $220,250,000. Great uncertainty attends the question of the probable production of the precious metals in the countries last named, described by M. Chevalier as "countries imperfectly accessible to the commerce of the world." The French economist does not materially differ from the estimates of McCulloch in regard to America, Europe, and Australia, finding a total value of $202,000,000 for the year 1865; but his estimate of the oriental product far exceeds any English or American opinion upon that subject. For instance, he presents the following table: Africa India.. $7,000,000 5,500,000 17,000,000 31,000,000 15,000,000 75,500,000 M. Chevalier thus obtains the annexed aggregate for the entire product of the globe after 1848 and before 1865: European and American.... Asiatic and African.... Total...... $202, 000, 000 75,500,000 277,500,000 He supplements this statement by the total quantity which from 1848 to 1864, or during 17 years, was placed at the disposition of the world: Silver Total... $1,100,000,000 3, 000, 000, 000 4, 100, 000, 000 Except for the high estimate of Asiatic production there will be no material dissent from the foregoing conclusions of M. Chevalier. All modern experience indicates that the era of placer mining is soon terminated and must have long since passed away in Asiatic countries. There is little evidence of elaborate methods either of alluvial or mechanical mining, and the sum of $25,000,000 per annum is therefore submitted instead of $75,000,000 as the production of gold and silver beyond the great mining centres. If we grant the accuracy of M. Chevalier's estimate of the total amount of gold and silver in 1848, and assume that the sum of $250,000,000 per annum will be the average annual production from 1848 to 1880, it will then require the period between those dates, or 30 years, to duplicate the world's supply of precious metals. The activities of commerce and the developments of human industry, accelerated beyond all former precedent by the progress of the arts, will probably prove sufficient for the absorption of this vast quantity of the precious metals without convulsion of prices or values. The cotton trade with India transferred within seven years $500,000,000 almost entirely in silver. The extension of railways and the construction of works of irrigation in India have absorbed another $500,000,000 of English capital, and there are evidences that the accumulations of European and American wealth are henceforth to be diffused under ample international guarantees over all the continents. If so, there will be ample room and demand for any apparent excess of the precious metals. Europe and America will substitute gold for silver as money, while Asia will probably continue to absorb silver for many years to come, before the ratio of currency to population now existing in Europe shall extend over the eastern world. A brief statement will illustrate the extent of the oriental demand for the precious metals, which, now mostly confined to silver, will hereafter, or as soonas the world shall desire it, extend to gold. India, in 1857, had a circulating medium of $400,000,000 for the use of a population of 180,000,000, or $2.22 per capita. France has a population of 38,000,000, with a money supply of $910,000,000, or $24 per capita. Suppose China, Japan, and the other industrious populations of Asia to be in the situation of India, and that the current of bullion since 1853 has supplied the Asiatics with $3 per capita, there yet remains a difference of $21 per capita before the monetary level of France is attained, demanding a further supply of $21 per capita over a population of 600,000,000, or not less than $12,600,000,000. The railway system will soon connect Europe and Asia, and constitutes a most important agency for the transfer of capital and distribution of money among the populations of the eastern continent. Since the suppression of the Indian mutiny an English writer estimates that more than £100,000,000 sterling have been added to the currency and reproductive capacity of India, mostly from England, in the construction of railroads and canals. There were 3,186 miles of railway in operation in 1865, having cost $86,000 per mile, and having been constructed with the aid of a guarantee of five per cent. to stockholders by the province of India. The system for which the government indorsement is already given will be 4,917 miles of railway, at an estimated cost of £77,500,000. These roads will relieve the government of liability when their earnings reach £25 per mile per week, a point which the leading lines have nearly reached, and which all are destined to attain. Such is the success of Indian railways that their connection with Europe by the valley of the Euphrates, and their extension into China, will probably be accomplished within the next 10 years. By that time Russia will have undertaken a railway from Moscow to Pekin through southern Siberia-a great trunk line that would soon justify a series of southern lines penetrating central Asia over those leading caravan routes which have been the avenues of Asiatic commerce for centuries. If an investment of $430,000,000 in 5,000 miles of railway is financially suc cessful in Hindostan at this time, it may be anticipated that a population of 180,000,000 will warrant the enlargement of the system within the present century fully four-fold, which would be only a fifth of similar communications required and supported by an European or American community. Suppose such a ratio of railway construction extended over China, central and western Asia, and Siberia, it would be only one mile for every 9,000 people, while in the United States there are 36,000 miles for 36,000,000 people, or a mile to every thousand; and yet the Asiatic ratio, moderate as it is, presents the startling result of 66,000 miles of railroad constructed by the expenditure of $5,676,000,000. Such a disbursement of European accumulations in Asia would go far to diffuse not only the blessings of civilization, but any excess of production from the gold and silver mines of the world. In Australia a railway has been constructed from Melbourne to the Ballarat gold fields, 380 miles, at a cost of $175,000 per mile, which pays a net profit nearly equal to the interest on the immense investment. It is difficult to estimate the amounts destined to be absorbed for railways in all the continents, under the direction of the great powers of the world-projected, constructed, and administered by the wealth and intelligence of America, Russia, England, Germany and France. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. It is deemed expedient to reserve for a subsequent report the detailed statements of mining enterprises east of the Rocky mountains. Many of the organizations for quartz mining in Colorado and Montana yet await the results of scientific investigations into the best methods of reducing the ores of gold and silver; while in the Alleghany district other causes have intervened to postpone a large number of mining operations. The summer of 1868 will doubtless supply the materials of a full and comprehensive report upon this topic. The act of July 26, 1866, extending facilities for acquiring titles to mineral lands, marks a most important epoch in the progress of mining enterprise upon this continent. Secretary McCulloch, in his report of 1865, suggested that the principle of pre-emption, so long applied to the sale of agricultural lands in the west, should be extended in favor of the holders of claims to gold and silver mines on the public domain. A bill to this effect was furnished to Senator Sherman, which, after much discussion, was matured into the act of July 26, 1866. Under the careful instructions of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, this legislation has been received with great favor on the Pacific slope. By its provisions freedom of exploration, free occupation of government lands for placer mining, a right to pre-empt quartz lodes previously held and improved according to local customs or codes of mining, the right of way for aqueducts or canals, not less essential to agriculture than to mining, and the extension of the homestead and other beneficent provisions of the public land system in favor of settlers upon agricultural lands in mineral districts, have been established as most important elements for the attraction of population and the encouragement of mining enterprises. The Commissioner of the Land Office has carefully analyzed this enactment, and greatly facilitated its execution by a circular recently issued. The spirit of the legislation under consideration is in the interest of actual settlement and occupation, and adverse to absentee ownership for merely speculative purposes of mining properties. It will probably be necessary to supplement the act in question by some general revision of the local mining customs, which, although generally founded on the Spanish code so long in use in Mexico, are often incongruous and obscure. The most practicable and economical methods of desulphurizing the refractory ores which characterize the Atlantic mines having been made by the Secretary a special subject of inquiry, no effort will be made on the present occasion to anticipate its progress and conclusions. I beg leave to renew a former suggestion, that the metalliferous localities of the Alleghanies south of the Potomac river shall be carefully explored under national auspices. JAMES W. TAYLOR. Hon. HUGH MCCULLOCH, Secretary of the Treasury |