Utah Copper Company's Open Pit Mine, Bingham, Utah.
This Mountain is Copper Ore.

THE BUSINESS
OF MINING

A BRIEF, NON-TECHNICAL EXPOSITION
OF THE PRINCIPLES INVOLVED IN THE
PROFITABLE OPERATION OF MINES

BY

ARTHUR J. HOSKIN, M.E.,

CONSULTING AND GENERAL MINING ENGINEER; WESTERN EDITOR, "MINES
AND MINERALS"; FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF MINING, COLORADO SCHOOL
OF MINES; MEMBER, AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF MINING ENGINEERS;
MEMBER, COLORADO SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY

WITH 16 FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS AND ONE CHART

PHILADELPHIA & LONDON

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

1912

COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY J. B. LIPPENCOTT COMPANY
PUBLISHED JULY 1912

PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE BUSINESS OF MINING

INTRODUCTION

There is probably no line of human activity that is not beset with malicious and ignorant intruders. The fact that any occupation or business is really legitimate seems often to stimulate the operations of these disreputable persons.

Mining does not escape the application of this postulate. For ages, the industry has afforded most fertile opportunities for the machinations of the unscrupulous and the erring. Somehow, there weaves throughout the history of mining a sort of magnetism rendering us unduly susceptible to the allurements which are presented with every mining proposition.

It is not, however, always intentional deceit that is perpetrated upon the unwary. Often, mining failures result from actual ignorance of the business upon the part of those entrusted with its conduct, or if not from actual lack of knowledge, then from erroneous conceptions with the consequent misapplication of honest endeavor. A victim of such misplaced faith is perhaps more leniently inclined than is the person who has been duped by a "shark," but the effect upon the great industry is hurtful in either case.

The purpose of this short monograph will be served if the author can feel assured that his readers will finish its perusal with the belief that mining may be followed as a business with just as much assurance of success as attaches to any one of the many lines of industrial activity. Many persons who have sustained losses in mining ventures deserve no sympathy whatever, since they have not exercised even the simplest precautions. So long as men—or women—will take as fact the word of any untrained or inexperienced individual concerning investments, just so long will there be resultant financial losses, no matter what the line of business. Because there have been elements of chance observed in the records of mining, this business appeals to the speculative side of our human natures, with the result that untold numbers of individuals have had ample reason to regret their ventures. But, as will be found in the text matter, mining can be relied upon with precisely as much assurance as can any other business.

Nothing of a technical or engineering sort has been attempted herein, the sole aim of the writer being to establish the reliability and the credit of the mining industry as a whole by pointing out the lines of conduct which should be followed by those who enter its precincts as business people. When investors of small or large means will put their money into mining projects with the same precautions that they would exercise in placing their cash in other enterprises, they will be rewarded with corresponding remuneration. In this firm conviction, then, this little work is dedicated to the intelligence of American laymen in mining matters.

I
WHAT IS A MINE?

Before entering into a discussion of the economic features of the mining industry, it will be well to be sure that we understand, definitely, what is meant by mining. As one investigates the question, he is bound to run across varying shades of meaning for the words Mine and Mining, and so we must pause long enough to define these words according to the best usages.

A search through works on mining written at various periods reveals differing ideas that have prevailed among authors. Less than a hundred years ago, it was said that a mine "consists of subterranean workings from which valuable minerals are extracted." One early writer said that a mine is one only when the operations are conducted in the absence of daylight. As time has created new fields for the industry, we find that ideas concerning the meaning of the word mine have necessarily altered, until now (according to The Coal and Metal Miners' Pocketbook), we may think of a mine as "any excavation made for the extraction of minerals." Under this definition, we properly think of the rather unusual operations of marketing coal right from the surface of the earth, in eastern Kansas, as mining. There is, in this case, no covering of earth above the workmen; neither are the operations necessarily carried on at night to avoid the illumination of the sun.

So, also, placers are now correctly spoken of as mines, although but a few years ago there was drawn a strict line, eliminating such worked deposits from the category of mines. One may still run across a few men who are sticklers upon the point that a placer is not a mine. Throughout the world, at the present time, there are many places where immense deposits of valuable minerals are being excavated from open pits by out-of-doors methods, and our common term for these places is mines. Thus, in Minnesota, in that wonderful Lake Superior country, that is famous as the world's greatest known producer of iron ore, tremendous tonnages are handled every year by the modern steam shovel, which works in natural light by day and by electric lamps at night. In Utah and Nevada we find similar operations conducted in the excavation of copper ores. In Australia, the famous Mount Morgan mine is using open air methods in the mining of precious metal ore.

But what about quarries from which are taken building stone, salt, kaolin or clay? Are not such substances of the mineral kingdom? Here we run across a hitch in the definition quoted above; for while we hear of "salt mines" (not "salted mines"), our parlance has not, as yet, warranted this term except for such excavations of salt as are carried on in subterranean deposits; and it is quite out of place to speak of stone or clay mines.

Evidently we must pass through another transition in our conceptions about mines, or we must permit quarries and pits to be included within our realm of mines. At the present time, the prevailing practice of the men best qualified in such matters is to designate as mines those workings from which only coal, metallic ores, or gems are extracted. Hence, we should not speak of a slate, sulphur, mica, clay or phosphate mine.

And yet, with all the above restriction in our nomenclature, we have not reached one very important consideration, one which we have been approaching for a number of years and which, of late, has been met and forcibly applied by the best men in the profession of mining engineering.

An excavation that will produce coal, metals or gems is not necessarily a mine. The simple fact that a man can get some gold-bearing dirt from a hole in the ground does not mean that he has a mine. The occasional finding of a diamond on the sidewalks of a great city does not give anybody the impression that city sidewalks are diamond mines. There are many places in which small amounts of combustible coal can be scratched from its natural depository, but no company appears to think highly enough of these seams to install machinery and to carry on operations. In the eastern part of Kentucky there are well-defined deposits of lead-bearing baryta, though, up to date, their development has not proved successful. In Brazil there are known to be very rich areas of placer ground, and still the deposits are not worked. A friend of the writer discovered some very good gold-bearing gravels in Alaska, but he was unable to mine.

There is something besides the presence of valuable minerals and the ability to win them from their natural matrices that is essential to a mine. It is here, in our considerations of the mining industry, that we come into real economic notions for the first time. Yes, according to the latest ideas, we are wrong in stating that any worked or workable mineral deposit is a mine, if it does not contain possibilities of profitable working. This is now the prime thought of every up-to-date mining manager or engineer. It is this notion that will distinguish a mine from a prospect. The prospect may become a mine by proving itself profitably workable: if it simply carries values which cannot be realized to advantage, then it must continue as a mere prospect. There are cases of properties which possess rich deposits and which are loosely called mines. These properties may be observed to be erratic in their productiveness, owing to the very pockety nature of the deposits; and the owners, although they do, indeed, strike occasional handsome bonanzas, expend all the profits of such finds—or even greater amounts—in searching for other pockets. Is such work profitable? Is it mining?

The trouble with the cited placers of South America is that climatic, hygienic and political conditions have been antagonistic to successful working: the ground is rich, but it cannot be handled to make money. In the case of the Alaska gravels, there was no available, though essential, water supply. The Kentucky galena cannot be economically separated from the containing heavy spar. Coal, which is sold at comparatively low figures per ton, must be handled at the mines in large quantities to pay, so that a thin seam or a scattered deposit is not suitable for mining.

Under these restrictions of our new definitions, we run across many interesting points. For instance, one may ask the question about the old abandoned hole in the ground which is occasionally found by prospectors, "Is it a mine?" The answer can be simply another query as to whether the hole was abandoned because it contained no value, or because, containing value, it could not be profitably worked. As we think of mines nowadays, we can conceive several reasons why, before the advent of transportation lines and the invention of modern metallurgical processes and many forms of labor-saving machinery now so common in and about mines, many very rich deposits may have been necessarily forsaken by their discoverers. But such a property would, if now worked, probably prove highly profitable. We thus note that there exists some elasticity in the meaning of the word mine. An unprofitable project at one time may develop into a mine at a later period. Many gold mines have become worthless propositions merely through changes in the ore that have rendered further work unremunerative.

II
WHAT IS MINING?

Having considered the accepted definition of a mine, let us now extend our reasoning a little and inquire just what is meant by mining. At first thought, one would say that mining is, in a broad sense, the art or practice of excavating, at a profit, the ores of metals, the beds of coal, the gravels of placers and the deposits containing precious stones. Are we justified in letting this definition stand as it is? If we do not make any change, we must exclude all quarries, sand banks, clay pits, and the numerous sorts of works that are producing the non-metallic minerals of commerce. Very well, since we find good usage will warrant us, we will do so.

Hackett Mine and Mill, Joplin, Missouri.

Still, there are other pertinent questions arising. Does the practice of mining cover the treatment of the excavated products? Here we run across a mooted point. The British and the American uses of the word mining seem to be a bit different in this regard. Upon the Rand, South Africa, a territory dominated by Englishmen, every mine is equipped with its own mill, and all notions of mining cover the inseparable idea of local ore treatment. Here, in our country, there are many, many mines which have absolutely no means of treating their own products and the managers give no thought whatever to metallurgical or milling lines. There are, on the other hand, many companies that have erected private plants at their mines for the extraction of metallic contents from the ores. Here it may, or it may not, happen that the operations of mining are considered as distinct from those of treatment. In some instances, as at the Tonopah Mining Company's plants, there is separate superintendence of the milling and the mining; but in the Joplin, Missouri, zinc region one superintendent looks after the running of a mine and its omnipresent mill.

There may be drawn a sharp distinction between what is really mining and what is the subsequent treatment of the ores for the extraction of values. The latter field is denoted Metallurgy when the operations are of such a nature as to actually recover or extract metallic products or metals. If the treatment process has for its object merely the rejection of some of the worthless materials in the original ore, thus causing a concentration of the valuable minerals, but without actually obtaining any metal, then the term Ore Dressing is warranted. At some mines, there is maintained a practice of culling out, often by hand, a certain percentage of the obviously worthless ingredients of the ore before shipping the products to treatment plants. This is neither milling, metallurgy, nor ore dressing, but is more properly called Sorting. It is one of the operations connected with mining. Milling may be either ore dressing or metallurgy.

In the operations of placering, there is a simultaneous excavation of a deposit and an extraction of the valuable contents. In this case, shall we call the process mining or metallurgy? If it is a gold placer, one may see the recovery of the metallic values. Here, the usage of the majority of practical mining men will uphold us in always speaking of the work as mining.

In its original significance and use, metallurgy involved the use of fire for the concentration and recovery of metals. With recent advances in chemistry, there have been numerous discoveries of wet or fireless methods for arriving at equivalent results, so that it is now perfectly proper to allow the word metallurgy to cover such processes as cyanidation, chlorination, electrolysis, and the host of new inventions that are continually appearing.

The writer has consulted a number of authorities on mining lines to ascertain just what sort of a position to give to the practice of ore dressing. Prof. Robert H. Richards, the head of the mining department in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the inventor of machines which have made him famous among mining men, says, "Ore dressing is an essential part of mining. The whole object of ore dressing is to remove gangue before shipment and so save in freight and treatment charges." Mr. A. G. Charleton, the eminent English mining engineer and author of numerous books, in discussing this question, writes, "Personally, I am of the opinion that ore dressing should be included in mining." One has but to look through the catalogues of most of the American and foreign mining schools to find that little or no line is drawn between the courses in mining and metallurgy, and almost universally the dressing of a mine's product is taken up as an inseparable part of mining. In a very few exceptions, the courses of study are so planned as to draw an imaginary line between mining and metallurgy, and in these instances, ore dressing is placed with metallurgy only for convenience in the use and arrangement of college laboratories. But, since it is a common practice for mining companies to install plants right at the mines for the purpose of diminishing the bulk of ore shipped and to thus save in freight and custom treatment charges, mine superintendents and even the common miners have become accustomed to thinking of such plants as but units of the "mining" plants. At bituminous and anthracite mines whose products contain objectionable amounts of impurities, it is a common practice to subject the output to a Washing to remove the deleterious substances before shipment to the market.

Coal Washing Plant, Pana, Illinois.

In view, then, of these reasons, it is proper to decide that mining is a term broad enough to cover the operations of extracting coal and metallic ores from the ground and of preparing them for shipment or metallurgical treatment.

Coal is always coal, no matter in what thickness of deposit it is found. It may not be minable coal because in thin seams or because so intercalated with layers of slate or "bone," that the mine's mixture, or so-called "run of mine," is not salable. But with metallic ores, we run across an idea that is occupying the attention of many prominent geologists and mining men.

What is ore? This is a question to which there have been many attempted answers. There has been an evolution of ideas, with a corresponding gradation of definition. To set a uniform standard of thought upon this point, officers of the United States Geological Survey, a few years ago, proposed the following definition. It must be conceded that this definition, while embodying many splendid features, is not altogether exempt from criticism; but in the absence of anything better, we shall not be very far in error if we use it:

Ore is a natural aggregation of one or more minerals from which useful metal may be profitably extracted.

There is, then, no such thing as "pay ore" or "non-pay ore," expressions still quite common among miners and prospectors of the uneducated types. Prof. James F. Kemp, probably America's best-posted writer upon the subject, in an attempt to formulate one acceptable and unchangeable meaning for the word ore, says, "In its technical sense, an ore is a metalliferous mineral or an aggregate of such minerals, more or less mixed with gangue, and capable of being won and treated at a profit. The test of yielding the metal or metals at a profit seems to me, in the last analysis, the only feasible one to employ." This definition eliminates one of the weak points in the first definition, namely, that an ore must be an association of minerals: there are some common ores (as for example, magnetite) which are not associations, but single minerals.

We now reach certain fundamental concepts which must be accepted by the mining man who desires to be recognized as abreast of modern ideas. Following the publication of Kemp's definition of ore, there was much comment—as was anticipated—with the result that there has been noted a vacancy in scientific matters and it has been thought proper to permit another definition for purely scientific uses. This other definition of ore will cover the materials or aggregates of minerals from which gem stones and other valuable, but not metallic, substances are recovered.

Let us recapitulate. An ore must be an aggregate or association of natural minerals, or a single mineral, from which metal may be profitably recovered. Mines are excavations in the earth from which ore, coal or gems are taken. Mining is the art or practice of operating mines.

Throughout the subject, we see the inseparable idea of profit. The work of carrying on operations in a railroad tunnel is not mining; the driving of adits through barren rocks to reach ore bodies is not mining; the sinking of shafts through worthless "wash" or rocks with a view of opening avenues for the removal of ore is not mining. Mining is carried on only when ore is being produced. The wildcat practice of erecting small, temporary plants and digging prospect holes can be condemned as not being real mining.

Universal Mine (bituminous), Clinton, Indiana.

There is usually little question about the validity of a coal mining proposition, since "the goods show for themselves." Comparatively few cases of fraudulent ventures in coal properties are of record. The product of a coal mine is ready for market just as soon as it is loaded into railroad cars, the mining company receiving its pay, commonly, upon its own recorded weights. There is no freight to pay, no waiting for assays or analyses, and no settlements with mills or smelteries. There are not the allurements for getting rich quickly in coal mining that are so beguiling to the class of investors generally approached by the promoters of mines(?). This must not be construed as stating that nobody has ever been deceived in a coal mine proposition, for, indeed, there have been many failures; however, they have been due, chiefly, to auto-deception as to area, thickness or quality of the coal measures.

III
THE ANTIQUITY OF MINING.

Mining is believed to have been one of man's earliest occupations. In historical writings, many of which date back into antiquity, there are allusions, as well as direct statements, concerning the art and tasks of obtaining valuable metals from Mother Earth. We are told that the very ancient Egyptians made common use of metals and that they possessed knowledge of certain metallurgical and metal-working processes (as for example, the tempering of copper) which we, of today, cannot claim. Six thousand years ago Egypt became a world power through her mining of copper in the Sinai Peninsula. Iron implements found in the great Gizeh Pyramid are supposed to date back to 4,000 B.C. Copper tools have been found in the ruins of ancient Troy. In Assyria, a very good steel saw, 44 inches long, was taken from the ruins of Nimrod. Iron was utilized by the Chinese some 2,000 years B.C. Near Delhi, India, there exists an iron pillar, 22 feet long and weighing six tons, dating back to 400 B.C. It is chiefly interesting in exhibiting an ancient knowledge of welding which is the envy of our modern iron workers. If we accept the Hebrew Scriptures, we must believe that mining was carried on in the time of Tubalcain, spoken of in Genesis. The Old Testament contains numerous verses referring to the mining of metals, the land of perfect abundance being paraphrased in Deuteronomy thus: "Where the stones are of iron and out of its hills are digged mines of brass." Coal was mined and used in Greece in 1330 B.C.

It is quite probable that gold was the earliest metal to be worked. There are two good reasons for this assumption: First, gold was to be found in the native state or as nuggets, thus requiring no reduction process. Second, the ores of gold are usually less refractory than are the ores of other metals. This is especially true of the oxidized ores such as would naturally be discovered by primitive man. These facts, together with the further properties of gold, viz., that its color is attractive, that it resists corrosion or tarnish, and that it is easily worked into ornaments or coin merely by hammering, make it highly probable that humans early made use of this yellow material.

We read in Job 28:1, that "gold is refined;" and modern investigations tend to prove that the Ophir of Biblical reference is the southern portion of Matabeleland or the Rhodesia of present fame among mining regions. It is possible and quite probable that the great quantities of gold used in the building and furnishing of King Solomon's Temple came from the vicinity of the present city of Johannesburg. The "golden fleece" of literature has been explained as a figure of speech for the skins of sheep which were laid in troughs to catch gold upon the principle of the riffle in a modern sluice-box.

Copper was perhaps the second metal to be worked by man. As a rule, it, also, is easily smelted from its ores; and, as above mentioned, we have relics that give evidence of wonderful skill in working this metal in times of remote antiquity.

However, other metals are believed to have been mined, upon commercial scales, before the Christian era. Silver and lead were handled in large quantities from the mines of Laurium, Greece, in the sixth century B.C., and the same mines are being worked to this day, the principal values now being in the lead rather than, as formerly, in the white metal. The Phœnicians, about 500 B.C., invaded Spain for gold, copper and mercury, and Cornwall for tin and copper. The Almaden quicksilver mines of Spain have been operated, almost incessantly, since 415 B.C., and in the 16th century, A.D., the wealth of Europe's greatest family of financiers, the Fügers, was based upon the operation of this remarkable deposit.

Del Mar, in his History of the Precious Metals, says, "Desire for the precious metals, rather than geographical researches or military conquest, is the principal motive which has led to the dominion of the earth by civilized races. Gold has invariably invited commerce, invasion has followed commerce, and permanent occupation has completed the process. It is the history of the past as well as of the present. Scipio went to Africa, Cæsar to Gaul, Columbus to America, Cortez to Mexico, Pizarro to Peru, Clive to the conquest and Hastings to plunder Bengal."

Our own day has witnessed the subjugation of the Boer. Because of Mexico's mineral wealth, many optimistic Americans are beginning to prophesy the annexation of our sister republic. For gold, Englishmen populated Australia in 1850, about the same time (1849) that we witnessed the rush to California gold fields. Spaniards settled Central and South American countries merely to gain the precious metals. It is mining which has been responsible for the population of the arid, southwestern portion of our own domain.

In this, as in every other age of the world's development, we shall find that the mining industry lies at the heart of all commerce. It is well for the student of mining economics to fully appreciate this fact, for it will whet his interest in this great world industry.

"Truly, it has been a great seeking and finding. The story of mining may have been staled by commonplace, and the romance of it dulled, often enough, by greed; yet, in the main, it has linked the generations of earth as with a golden thread—and if not golden only, then there has been the red glint of copper or the white sheen of silver. Mining districts may come and go, but mining remains."—(Editorial, Engineering and Mining Journal).

IV
MINING'S PLACE IN COMMERCE.

It is said that upon two of the world's commercial industries, every other form of activity depends. These two fundamental industries are agriculture and mining. Statisticians prove the above statement and the further fact that these two dissimilar branches of civilization's business are so closely related as to be quite inter-dependent. Strides are made by one of these industries only when advance is noted in the other. While it may not be possible to explain just why this is so, it is worth our attention to consider some brief figures that show this condition of affairs.

The agitation conducted during the past few years, leading to the establishment of a Bureau of Mines in the Department of the Interior, attracted the thoughts of many students of economics who had not previously or seriously considered the industry of mining. The delivery of brilliant addresses showed that mining had been unjustly retarded. While agriculture has for years been fostered by the government and with remarkably satisfactory results, the great sister industry has been required, until recently, to struggle along without any governmental recognition in the matter of support. Yet it has forged its way in unmistakable terms of progress and there was an insistent demand, among those men particularly interested in the welfare of mining, for the protection and the assistance which would and has now come through the establishment of a governmental department. Various states have long recognized the importance of the mining industry by the establishment of departments. The Canadian and Mexican governments maintain very creditable Departments of Mines. It was but a question of time until the shortsightedness of our politicians (not our statesmen) was revealed, and the mining industry has now come under the auspices of a federal department.

Taking the world as a whole, it would be hard to conceive the sum total of annual mineral productions. The middle of the past century seems to have been a critical period in the mining industry of the earth. There was a great impetus given to mining by the greed for gold which caused the settlement of our western states and the Australian states, as already mentioned. But there gradually followed the opening up of mining in many other and hitherto unpopulated and uncivilized portions of the globe. The search for gold was successful.

Prior to 1850, the production of gold had not kept pace with the increase in population. Soon, however, it began to take leaps, in almost geometrical ratios, until, by 1900, the annual production of gold throughout the world was some 2,200 per cent. of the production for 1800 (as nearly as may be ascertained). The 1900 gold production was of a weight of about 400 tons, in round figures. During 1911, the world produced approximately $470,000,000 (about 779 tons) in new gold bullion. It is estimated that with a continuance of the remarkable progress, the next 20 years will duplicate the amount of gold now known in the world. This means that the amount of gold which has been accumulating from mining during the world's ages will be doubled during a fraction of our lifetime. This is significant of the world's progress, in gold mining, at least.

Kennedy Mine, Jackson, California.

It seems coincidental that the rush for gold in 1849-50 should have been almost simultaneous with the remarkable development of our other mineral resources. All of our great discoveries of coal, oil, silver, iron, lead, copper, and zinc can be said to have followed closely upon the discovery of gold in California. It is not supposed that the discovery of iron in northern Michigan in the early eighties had any connection with the "Pike's-Peak-or-Bust" expeditions, nor that the opening and development of the vast coal beds of Pennsylvania had any bearing on the discoveries of lead and zinc in the great Mississippi Valley. But, on the other hand, there can be traced a very intimate relation between the finding of gold, silver, copper, and lead in the Rocky Mountain states and the search for gold in California: the pioneers en route to the coast were the discoverers and settlers in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Montana.

Figures are not available for arriving at such striking or reliable conclusions in regard to the world's production of metals other than gold, but there is no logical reason to doubt that such increases have been just as pronounced as in the case of the yellow metal. In fact, there are good grounds for assuming that the figures for silver, lead, iron, and zinc would show up even more spectacularly; while with coal, we know that we are now in the greatest period of the world's production.

The United States leads the world in the production of the base metals, such as copper, iron, manganese, lead, and zinc, taken collectively or separately. Our country stands second in the production of the precious metals, gold, platinum, and silver. We have the greatest variety of mineral products, as well as the greatest production of complex ores, or those carrying more than one valuable metal. We produce more copper than the rest of the world combined. Although we stand in second place when considering the production of gold, we still possess the Homestake mine in the Black Hills, famous as being the gold mine with the greatest tonnage in the world; and the Camp Bird mine, in the San Juan district of Colorado, famous the world over for its highest average value of gold ore. This great mine is now nearly exhausted and is about to close down after making a wonderful record.

South Africa produces the greatest amount of, and the purest, natural gold in the world. Great Britain has an insignificant production of both gold and copper, and still it is noteworthy that the English-speaking nations control the world's production of both these metals. British and American citizens own seven-eighths of the world's gold mines. England stands second in the consumption of copper, which, of course, is mainly imported.

Russia controls the world's output of platinum, with very little competition. In a similar manner, Canada has the control of nickel production. Mexico, although not commonly regarded as a gold mining country, is rapidly coming to the front and possesses the Esperanza mine, said to be one of the most profitable gold mines in the world.

To more emphatically show the importance of the mining industry, especially in our own country, the following facts are taken from 1900 census returns: Agriculture produces annually about $725 per capita; mining, $1,910; and manufacturing, which is dependent upon the others, $760. The National Banker has said: "Statistics show that the combined dividends paid by the gold and silver mining companies of the United States are greater than the combined dividends paid by all of the banking institutions of the country; and the combined dividends paid by the copper mining companies of the United States exceed the combined dividends paid by all of our railroads."

There is one thought that will always comfort any person who is engaged in furthering legitimate mining: Wealth acquired from a mine is not wrested from any being but Mother Earth, and it is not, therefore, in the class with the much discussed "tainted money" that is said to be wrung from unfortunate human beings.

The following tables are presented to give the reader ideas concerning the productions of gold and silver during recent years. Among the interesting points that may be noted are the following:

The gold production of the world took a sudden drop in 1900, but it immediately resumed its upward climb. During the decade from 1900 to 1910, this production increased over 81 per cent.

There is a remarkable similarity noticeable in the gold productions of the United States during the years 1910 and 1911.

Without the notable increase in the gold output of the Transvaal in 1911, the world's total gold production for that year would have shown a decrease.

The silver production of the United States remained practically unchanged during 1911.

GOLD PRODUCTION OF THE WORLD FOR 20 YEARS

UNITED STATES SILVER PRODUCTION
(In Fine Ounces)

UNITED STATES GOLD PRODUCTION
(In Value)

GOLD PRODUCTION OF THE WORLD