GOLD AND SILVER.
125
placer
gold was $21,860, chiefly derived from Whatcom and Kittitas counties.
Only a small amount of gold was produced from lead and copper ores.
As
to silver, the production was insignificant, amounting only to 55,359
ounces. The largest part of this was derived from Snohomish County.
Wyoming.—The
production of gold from Wyoming amounted only to $9,344, an increase of
$2,823 compared with 1906. Most of this gold is derived from copper
ores of the Encampment district. Only a small quantity comes from
placers and siliceous ores.
Philippine Islands.—Although
gold mining has been carried on in the Philippine Islands for several
hundred years, exact records of production have not been kept. The
aggregate value was undoubtedly great. Since the American occupation
of the islands there has been much prospecting and considerable
development of gold and copper deposits, principally of the former, but
the production until 1907 was chiefly confined to placer washing and
gopher mining for gold in the hands of the non-Christian tribes of the
hills. This production by the natives of the islands probably averaged
about 1,500 fine ounces of gold, valued at about $31,000, each year
during the nine years ending with 1907. The total production by
Americans and Europeans from 1898 to 1906, inclusive, probably did not
exceed 600 fine ounces, about $12,400 in value. Preparations that had
been in the making for several years by American miners began to bear
their first real fruits in 1907, however, and for that year the
Division of Mines of the Bureau of Science, at Manila, have published
some statistics, from which the following figures are taken.
The total production of gold in the Philippine Islands for 1907 is given by the Division of Mines as 4,540 crude ounces.0
At the average fineness of 0.850 this would represent 3,859 fine
ounces, valued at $79,773. The production of silver is given as 83 fine
ounces,0 valued at $55. The total value of production of precious metals in the Philippines would, therefore, amount to $79,828.
Although
occurrences of gold are known in many islands of the group, the
production of 1907 is to be credited to but two of them, Luzon and
Masbate. In the former are two producing provinces, Benguet, in the
northern part, and Ambos Camarines, in the southeastern part, on the
Pacific coast. Masbate Island, to the southwest of Luzon, forms a
portion of the province of Sorsogon.
For
centuries the Igorots of Lepanto and Benguet have been mining gold,
washing it from the streams or recovering it by impounding water in the
hills and releasing it in floods over decomposed surface material, in
this way securing additional auriferous gravel, and at the same time
exposing the rich and narrow veins which they worked to limited depths
underground. The rich vein material thus obtained contained free gold
which was recovered after the ore was crushed in crude stone mortars
and washed by hand. The Igorots and later the Spaniards worked also
quite extensively the copper ores at Mancayan, in southern Lepanto,
near the northern boundary of Benguet. For a number of years
considerable quantities of copper
a
The Mineral Resources of the Philippine Islands, with a statement of
the production of commercial mineral products during the year 1907.
Issued by Warren D. Smith, Division of Mines, Bureau of Science,
Manila, 1908.
