Portuguese
was about $300,000,000, and from 1649 to 1671 the Dutch traders sent
home $200,000,000, two-thirds of which was silver.* In the latter year
the Japanese government forbade further export. The maximum gold
production of this country was reached during the last half of the
sixteenth century. Since that time the yield of gold has decreased
steadily, and the product in 1874 is estimated by J. H. Godfrey, Chief
Engineer of the Mining Office, at 12,000 ounces Troy.
The
deposits from which this wealth was drawn were principally shallow
placers. Prof. Munroe says that the present gravel-beds in Japan are of
fluviatile origin, shallow, limited in extent, and uniformly poor. The
richest deposits, near Yesso, contain less than seven cents per cubic
yard, and the average of the best does not exceed five and one-half
cents.f
Russia.—Russia
possesses extensive gold-bearing deposits. The principal mining
districts are those of the Ural,:}; the Altai region in western
Siberia, western Turk-istan, the northern and southern Yeniseisk
.fields, the circuit of Atchinsk and Minusinsk, Kansk and Nijneudinsk
in the government of Irkutsk, Verkneudinsk, Barguzinsk in
Trans-Baikalia, Olekminsk, the basin of the Lena, the country along the
Amur, and Nerchinsk.
According
to Lock (" Gold," p. 437) the total yield of all the Russian
gold-washings from 1814 to i860 inclusive (forty-seven years) amounted
to 35,487 poods, or 1,548,661 pounds Troy of alloyed gold.§
In
the reports of the United States Commissioners to the Universal
Exposition at Paris, 1878, vol. iv. p. 248, James D. Hague states the
approximate total production
* Griffis (u Mikado's Empire," p. 602) says that tl Japan exported during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries £103,000,000 in precious metals."
+ See " Mineral Wealth of Japan," by Henry S. Munroe, E.M., Trans. Am. Inst. Min. Eng'rs., vol. v.
X Gmelin's l' Journey through Siberia,1* 4 vols. Gb'ttingen, 1751-2.
§
For production of gold in Russia see also Jacob's work, appendix pp.
414, 415 ; Report of the United States Monetary Commission, p. 571; Sir
Hector Hay's " Parliamentary Report on Silver," 1876, App. 25.
