MEANS OF PROMOTING THE PRODUCTION OF THE PRECIOUS

METALS.

ENCOURAGEMENT OF VEIN MINING.

In view of the continued decrease in the production of gold from placer deposits, it becomes important to encourage and promote the extraction of gold from veins in every possible way. There are other great reasons for encouraging vein mining enterprises. They are permanent in their nature, and promote the general development and prosperity of the country by attracting a fixed population, composed of artisans, agricul turists, and others. In California, thriving towns and villages spring up around the quartz mines in the interior, where, without the mines. all would be comparative desolation. The superficial placers in California and elsewhere are soon worked out and deserted, and the placer miners are constantly roving about without fixed homes or property. It is somewhat different in regard to the deep placers and cement mines: they partake of the nature of permanent vein mines, yet are not so attractive as centres of population.

It is an extremely encouraging fact that vein mining in California and Australia is now, or at least was in 1866, more successful than at any former period. The number of successful vein-mining enterprises is increasing. In Australia, this branch of mining appears to have been extraordinarily developed, and to be followed to relatively greater extent than in California. Of the total gold production, of nearly 1,500,000 ounces in 1866, more than 500,000 were from quartz veins. The exact ratio of the production from the two sources was as 35 to 65.

In 1867, of the total of 1,433,687 ounces exported, 560,527 ounces were taken from quartz veins, and 873,160 ounces from alluvial workings. This shows the ratio per cent. of gold produced from quartz veins to that from placers to be as 39 to 61.

It is not possible to ascertain exactly the present production of the quartz mines of California, but it is probably less than one-third of the gross yield of the State, but is increasing. The number of stamps in 1866 was 4,997, many of which, however, were idle. In Australia there were 5,437 stamps. In December, 1867, the number of stamps in the several mining districts was 5,529, and the aggregate horse-power employed in crushing and hoisting was 9,555,3

All gold-producing regions become large consumers, not only of the necessaries of life, but of manufactured articles of all kinds and of luxuries. This is shown in a striking manner in the gold regions of California and Australia, and in Nevada.

2 There was no machinery of special interest to quartz miners shown in the Exposition, excepting, perhaps, the beautifu: hoisting engines, steel cages, and machines for drilling rocks, and the concentrating tables of Rittinger. It is believed that the stamps and other appliances in California for the extraction of gold from quartz are unrivalled, yet there is great room for their improvement, and for improvement of processes of treating the sulphurets.

3 Further interesting statistics of quartz mining in Australia, received since the foregoing pages of this report were printed, will be found in the appendix.

GOVERNMENT PROTECTION REQUIRED.

It is a primary duty of the government having a public domain of such great extent and wonderful richness to foster and protect mining enterprises, not only in order to promote the production of gold, silver, and ordinary metals, but as one of the best means of stimulating immigration, settlement, and the march of industry in all directions. Mining, considered in its importance to the wealth of the country, is an interest which cannot be neglected in legislation without serious loss.

The veins of gold, silver, and other metals should be regarded as the heritage of the people, and while these veins should be left free to all who choose to work them, they should not be completely abandoned to hap-hazard destructive development. The government should exert over them an intelligent protecting and directing care, and adopt such laws and regulations as will best promote permanent successful mining, preventing waste, the loss of the precious metals by careless and ignorant working, the complication and conflict of titles, and the holding of claims for merely speculative purposes, without any efforts being made to open and work them.

Nearly all the great exhibitions of mineral products in the Exposition illustrated the value of government direction and regulation of mining industry. The most satisfactory and perfect exhibitions were those made under the direction of government mining engineers. The collections were methodical and complete exhibits of the mineral resources of each country, and they were accompanied by maps and sections of mines in detail and by statistical publications prepared with the greatest care every year. The relations of position of the veins of ores and of beds of coal to the geological formations were shown by geological maps and sections and by models on a large scale, showing not only the inequalities of the surface of great districts of country, but the position of the coal beds below the surface, and the location of every mine.

By fostering mining enterprises and by thoroughly educating and training men to conduct them, many countries, whose resources in the precious and other metals are comparatively meagre, are successful producers of gold and silver from ores and veins such as in the United States would not be regarded as worth the labor of working. Every portion of an ore is utilized, and valuable products are obtained where without science and skill they would be wasted in residues. It has been shown in these pages that gold ores produced upon the slopes of the Rocky mountains and found to be "rebellious"-difficult to work-have been transported with profit, in a partly worked state, over the immense plains and across the whole breadth of the States east of the Mississippi, and then shipped across the Atlantic, to be successfully worked at Swansea, in Wales, simply for the want of a proper development of metallurgical science and industry in the United States. We must not lose sight of the fact that we not only send some of our ores abroad to be worked,

but that many of our young men are also sent abroad to obtain that thorough education and training in government institutions which they are unable to obtain at home.

IMPORTANCE OF A NATIONAL MINING COLLEGE,

The establishment of a national mining college would be one of the best or most effective means of securing the proper working of the mines and of promoting permanent and profitable mining enterprises, and thus tend to maintain a large production of the precious metals, especially from veins and deep placers, or wherever capital and skill is required. The dissemination of accurate information regarding mineral veins and their contents, and upon the various methods for extracting and reducing the ores economically, would prevent much of the present ill-directed energy and expenditure of time and money, often upon localities where there is little room to hope for success. Such institutions are absolutely neces sary to gather the teachings of experience and to place them in a form available to the many persons now interested and yet to be engaged in mining, and to the prospectors who are penetrating our unequalled mineral regions in all directions and are constantly discovering new sources of wealth. The country cannot do too much to sustain and encourage the men who are thus prospecting the unexplored and almost inaccessible portions of the public domain, and to whom we are chiefly indebted for the discoveries which have been made. We should not leave them to labor unaided, but should follow them by organized explo rations, by careful examinations of the veins and mineral deposits which they discover, and by the speedy publication of reliable and full infor mation upon them. One of the prominent features of a school of mines should be practical laboratories and metallurgical works upon a moderate scale, in which the students could take practical lessons in the working of ores by all the known and approved methods, including the mechanical preparation of ores, their concentration by water and by fire in furnaces, or their reduction in pans or otherwise. These laboratories would be min iature metallurgical establishments, where ores of all kinds, "docile” or "rebellious," would be received, experimented upon, and treated by the best methods, while the theory of the processes would be fully given and the chemical reactions explained, so that the students would obtain a thorough knowledge and comprehension of the principles involved in the chemical treatment of ores and be prepared to adapt themselves to other circumstances in which they might be placed when called upon to treat ores in regions remote from supplies. Such a government mining school would not only directly promote mining industry, but it would greatly increase the amount of exact scientific knowledge among the people, and thus promote, in the most effectual manner, general scientific education, the results of which would be felt in all our industrial pursuits.

It is gratifying to all the friends of mining industry to know that the establishment of such an institution is already engaging the attention of Congress. Foremost among its advocates is Senator Stewart, of Nevada, who in 1867 introduced and ably supported a bill for the organization of a National School of Mines.

CORPS OF MINING ENGINEERS SUGGESTED.

In connection with, and as partly growing out of, such a mining college, the government should organize and make provision for a corps of mining engineers, to be filled subsequently by the graduates of the college; the members of the corps to have rank and promotion corresponding with the grades of the corps of military engineers.

Such a body of thoroughly educated men should be charged with the duty of exploration of our mineral regions; with the collection of information upon them; with the preparation of reports upon mineral depos its, and memoirs upon mining and metallurgy, all of which would form the basis for publications at regular intervals, giving to the people such information as would best promote their interests and the national prosperity.

Engineers, so educated and sustained by the government, would be animated by laudable ambition and enthusiasm, and would be strengthened by an esprit de corps tending to their moral and æsthetic elevation. They would be in a position to give independent and reliable opinions and advice upon the value of our mineral deposits and the best method of developing them.

Such an organization would open a new and inviting field to our young and enterprising men, the graduates of schools of science, and others, who seek a career in the fields of science.

In view of the recognized necessity of thorough technical education to the highest industrial and commercial development of a nation, the organization of a national corps of mining engineers has an increased importance; for, as already argued in regard to the influence of a mining college, it would have an immense influence in promoting general scientific education, thereby causing an exact knowledge of the fundamental laws of nature to pervade the people, and giving them a greater power over our vast material resources.

Another great means of increasing the production of the precious metals is the construction of railways across the country, by which prospectors and supplies can be carried into the heart of what are now comparatively unexplored and unknown mineral regions; and by which machinery can be delivered at moderate cost to extensive regions already known, but remaining comparatively dormant for the want of rapid and cheap communication with the centres of supply both east and west.

16 G

CHAPTER X.

UNIFICATION OF GOLD AND SILVER COINAGE.

EVILS OF A Diversity in THE SYSTEMS OF WEIGHTS, Measures, and COINS-ADVAN TAGES OF A SIMPLE UNIVERSAL SYSTEM-Movement for MONETARY UNITY-MONETARY CONVENtion—ObservATIONS OF MR. BECKWITH, MR. KUGGLES, AND SENATOR SHERMAN ON THE TREATY-PROPOSITIONS BY MR. KENNEDY ADOPTED BY THE COMMITTEE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY CONFERENCE-ARGUMENT FAVORING A 25-FRANC COIN-PROFESSOR Levi's Speech-Report of Delegation FROM GREAT BRITAIN REPORT OF ROYAL COMMISSION-VIEWS OF M. CHEVALIER-OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THE UNITED STATES, AND THE PROPOSED LEGISLATION-CONCLUSION. The inconveniences and losses arising from the great diversity of sys tems of weights, measures, and coins among the chief nations of the earth have long been felt and acknowledged, but they are becoming greater and more evident with the constantly increasing facilities for international communication, by which the people and the commodities of remote regions are brought into constant and close contact.

The collections in the department of weights, measures, and coins of the Paris Exposition comprised no less than 36 different systems of weights, based upon 36 different units; 67 different systems of measures, based upon 62 different units; and 35 different standards of gold and silver coin belonging to 18 different monetary systems, based upon 15 different units or measures of value.

ADVANTAGES OF A UNIVERSAL SYSTEM.

The numerous benefits to be derived from a universal system, simpl and uniform, in place of this great incongruity and disorder, are no always present to the minds of those who are not occupied with the study of this subject. They may be grouped under the heads of educa tional, economic and scientific, and commercial. Some of the advan tages under each of these heads will be noted.

EDUCATIONAL.

The nature and relations of numbers, together with the systems weights, measures, and coins, belong to the elementary studies of chi dren in common schools. They are the rudiments or beginnings knowledge taught by all nations, of every-day use through life, and noth ing more generally useful or necessary is subsequently learned even by those who live to be venerable philosophers and statesmen. But how ever indispensable this part of knowledge is, no common school under takes to teach more than a part of it. So many systems without an common or connecting principle, or with so many different principles of