For
some foreign countries, owing to the difficulty of obtaining accurate
statistics since the beginning of the European.war, estimates have been
made for 1914, 1915, and 1916; for a few other countries, because of
lack of basis for estimates, the figures for preceding years have been
repeated.
The
figures given for the years 1904 to 1912, inclusive, are taken from the
reports of the Director of the Mint. The statistics for 1913 to 1916,
inclusive, were mainly adjusted in conference between the Mint and the
Geological Survey, but some small changes in the statistics for a few
countries in South America have been made since the Mint figures were
published.
The notable increase of total world's output of gold culminated in a new record of $468,724,918 in 1915.
The
estimated world's production of gold in 1916 was $457,000,000, or about
$11,700,000 less than in 1915. There were small increases in Canada,
Mexico, and South Africa, which were more than offset by considerable
decreases in Australia and the United States.
The
present tendency, in the absence of discovery and developÂment of new
gold fields on a large scale, is toward a declining world's output of
new gold.
