ounces fine gold. But as the placer diggings were gradually worked out, the annual output slowly decreased until in 1881-85 it fell below the average of the previous thirty years by 1,457,200 ounces. The lowest point was touched in 1883, when the production was only 4,614,588 ounces. Soon after that came the extension of the gold fields of Australia and the enlarging of operations in the United States, followed in 1890 by the development of the Randt; and the annual average of the last quinquennium showed an increase of 1,498,135 ounces over the first. For the year 1896 the production was 10,167,817 fine ounces, being an excess over the annual average of 1851-55 of 3,770,786 ounces, and over that of the decade 1841-50 of 8,410,966 ounces.

The increase in average annual production of silver from 1851-55 to 1861-65 is shown to be 6,899,040 ounces. Then ensued the workings of the great bonanza mines on the Pacific slope, accompanied a little later by extended operations in Mexico and developments in Australia and so the annual average of 1851-55 was exceeded in 1871-75 by 34,758,196 ounces, in 1881-85 by 57,139,627 ounces, and in 1891-95 by 132,432,634 ounces. For the year 1896 the excess over the average of 1851-55 was 157,612,666 ounces, and every year but one of the last twenty years shows a steady increase of production, rising from 62,679,916 ounces in 1877 to 186,042,188 ounces in 1896.

The relations of the two metals by weight and commercial value are shown in the next table for the periods under comparison, gold being taken as the unit:

The third period, when there was a large increase in the ratio of production, shows also an increase in the ratio of value; but as the demonetization of silver occurred in 1873, it may be said that this was the cause of the fall in the price of silver. The downward movement, however, began as early as 1866, or almost simultaneously with the relative increase in the production of silver, and it became accentuated as the disproportion in the production of the two metals went on. In 1894 the price of silver reached its lowest point, the ratio in that year being as 1: 32.60, while the ratio of production was as 1 to 19. In the next year the ratio of production was 1: 18.71 and the ratio of value was 1: 31.65; and in 1896 the production was 1: 18.30 and value 1:30.80.

Apparently these figures show, as conclusively as statistics can prove anything, that, beyond some indefinite ratio in the production of the two metals, the price of silver fell as the relative production of it increased, and that as the relative production of gold increased the price of silver rose, or, perhaps more accurately stated, the price of gold fell.

Under these circumstances, and with freedom of production unhindered in any way, could the maintenance of a'double standard and free coinage have led to any other result? Is it in the power of governments, by any law or regulation short of the autocratic limitation of the production of gold and silver throughout the world, to fix and maintain a ratio in the value of the metals in currency or commerce that shall not change or vary with a disturbance of the production ratio? Is there any law of the uncanny that applies to metal as coin, and does not apply to it as an article of use in the arts?

Suppose we take other metals besides gold and silver and try to ascertain how a double or quadruple standard would apply in their case. We may take nickel and aluminium, both of which possess qualities suitable for coinage purposes but around which there has gathered no glamour of prescription.

ounce.

Nickel has been used as a coin metal in the United States and Mexico, as well as in several countries of continental Europe. Twenty years ago, when the only mine in America that yielded nickel was the little mine at Lancaster Gap in Pennsylvania, the average price of the refined metal was $3 per pound avoirdupois, being $2.49 per pound troy or 20 cents per At the gold standard this would be represented by a ratio of 1 to 100. Since then the extensive nickel deposits of New Caledonia and Ontario have been discovered and opened up, and the processes of treating the ore and re fining the metal have been greatly improved; and although nickel continues to be coined into money its commercial price in a free market has fallen to 28 cents per pound avoirdupois, being 23 cents per pound troy, or less than two cents per ounce, which at the gold standard would be represented by a ratio of 1 to 1000. At the present rate of working, the mines of Ontario could produce 2,500 tons of refined nickel a year and that output might readily be increased five-fold or ten-fold. Is there any power in governments or conventions which could support the free coinage of nickel at a standard of 1 to 100 when the commercial value of the metal has been divided by 10?

In 1854, when the first sample of refined aluminium was obtained from its ore, an ounce cost almost as much as an ounce of gold. Three years later, by an improved process of treatment, it was produced at $60 per kilo, which is $27.27 per pound avoirdupois, or $1.87 per ounce troy. Compared with gold as the standard, this would be represented by a ratio of 1 to 11. Better and cheaper methods were adopted in the course of a few years, and in 1893 there was manufactured in the United States 295,000 lbs. avoirdupois of the metal, valued at $191,750, or nearly four and one-half cents per ounce troy. In 1896, with larger facilities of production, the output was increased to 1,300,000 lbs. avoirdupois, valued at $540,000, or very nearly three cents per pound troy. At this value aluminium would compare with the gold standard as 1 to 689 instead of as 1 to 11, the ratio of forty years ago.

Now with the great increase that has taken place in the production of nickel and aluminium, and the invention of methods for cheaper separa

tion of the metals from their ores, is it conceivable that the values of twenty or forty years ago could be kept down to the present time by the simple scheme of selecting these metals along with gold and silver for coinage uses and fixing a conventional standard? Or would not the same thing happen in their case as in the case of silver when the dislocation of ratios of production took place?

The great invention of Sir Henry Bessemer made possible the girding of this continent with railways. Since the first shops were opened in Sheffield thirty-five years ago to apply Bessemer's process, the price of steel rails has fallen from $120 to $20 and less per ton, freight charges have fallen proportionately, and areas of land equal in extent to whole empires of the old world have been brought under cultivation in the new. One of the first fruits of this enlargement of farmland on the prairies of the western states and of northwestern Canada was the slump in the price of wheat, for the increase in the quantity grown was much greater than the increase in the number of consumers. But just as the equilibrium is about being restored again, another enlargement of the area of wheatland looms up with the prospect of an early completion of the railway across Siberia. A few days ago it was announced that the government at Washington proposed to send a commission into northern Asia to ascertain its fitness for the growth of wheat, no doubt with the praiseworthy object of preparing the farmers of the United States for the situation this possible rival region may create.

It is well to be forewarned, but new flelds for the cultivation of wheat may not be the only disturbing element that confronts us. The large increase in the world's production of gold, which had its beginning with this decade, has already begun to tell upon the relative values of gold and silver, and no one can say what the end will be. Within two years, during which the production of silver was increased by 19,440,193 ounces, the ratio of gold and silver production fell from 1 to 19 to 1 to 18.30, and the ratio of value from 1 to 32.60 to 1 to 30.80. Other gold fields are opening, some in northern Ontario and some in the Yukon territory of northwestern Canada. Fabulous stories of the richness of the Klondike valley are told; single pannings are reported to yield nuggets of metal ranging in value from $500 to $1,000; and other valleys in the territory hundreds of miles in extent are supposed to hold as rich placers as the Klondike. These diggings promise to add very largely to the world's production of gold, and when the quartz veins in the mountains are discovered out of which the nuggets have been washed down by the streams it is not improbable that the records of the mines of California, Australia and Witwatersrandt may cease to excite our wonder or stir our avarice. An addition of 5,000,000 ounces to the world's yearly production of gold would inevitably tend to bring down the ratio toward the old standard around which gold and silver played for nearly two centuries preceding the dislocation whose origin we trace to the development of the silver mines of America and Australia within the last thirty years.

The gold wealth of Yukon would appear to be as worthy of investiga

tion by governments engaged in studying the problem of a gold standard or the free coinage of silver, as is the probability of the Siberian steppes becoming troublesome rivals of the American prairies in growing wheat supplies for the world's markets.

Joint sessions of the Section with the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science were held on August 12 and 13.