Ch. 1: Gold and Silver in 1889/90

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	54 MINERAL RESOURCES.

	By taking the figures of the several authorities and plotting them in the form of a diagram, and studying with particular care those portions where the authorities showed a wide divergence in their figures, a curve of "most probable values" of production of gold and silver was obtained, from which the figures given in the following table were taken. The bottom line in the table below is not in the census report, but is added from the figures given in the report of the Director of the Mint. Most probable values of the world's production of gold and silver—price of silver, and ratio of gold to silver.



	A study of the preceding table of the world's annual production ot gold and silver, and the price of silver from 1850 to 1889, shows that the world's gold production from 1850 to 1857 remained nearly constant at about $134,000,000; then decreased irregularly till 1883, reaching a minimum of $97,000,000; then increased irregularly to 1889, when the product was $120,000,000. The silver production remained nearly constant from 1850 to 1860 at above $40,000,000, increasing slowly to 1866

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