The
remarkable gain in domestic supply of gold indicated by the great
excess of $420,500,000 in imports over exports for 1915, an excess
equivalent to nearly 90 per cent of the total world's output of new
gold for the year, was due to the role of creditor nation maintained
by this country since the last great movements of its gold abroad. The
continuation of large exports of silver to the Far East and especially
to the Entente nations in Europe was due in part to demand for the
coinage of silver money for troops in the field.
MINES REPORT.
METHOD OP COLLECTING STATISTICS.
The
first table in this report presents the final official figures of the
production of gold and silver in the United States in 1915 as agreed
upon by the Bureau of the Mint and the United States Geological
Survey. With the comparatively unimportant exceptions of domestic gold
and silver contained in ores and mattes exported for reduction during
the year, these figures record the actual production of gold and silver
bullion from domestic ores in marketable form as metals, either refined
or unrefined.
Owing
to the difficulty of tracing this total gold and silver production
back to its origin by States, counties, and mining districts, however,
the Geological Survey attacks this problem of distribution :• by
systematic investigation of the mine production of ores containing
gold and silver during the calendar year and of the output of the
placer mines. In this way the state of the mining industry is studied
in detail, and classification of output by methods of production and by
kinds of ore, as well as by mining districts, is obtained. The
resulting figures form the basis of the mines report.
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