Ch. 1: Gold and Silver in 1919

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	688 MINERAL RESOURCES, 1919----PART I.

	ores are valuable chiefly for copper, lead, or zinc but which contribute precious metals as by-products. In addition to producing mines here enumerated, many properties were being prospected and developed (though prospecting and development were much less active than usual) without making any output in 1919, and many other mining claims were being held by assessment work only. The enumeration of placer mines is less satisfactory than that of deep mines, because some of the operations are only temporary and individually small and because much of the production is made by transitory miners not regularly working placer ground. The unit so far as possible is, however, as for deep mines, not the operator, but the mining claim or group of claims.



	Comparison of the figures for 1919 shows a net total decrease of 1,136 producing mines, following a decrease of 662 mines in 1918. The total number of properties operated in 1919 was 1,547 less than the average for the last 14 years. The number of placer properties worked in 1919 showed a decrease of 309, and the total was 1,211 less than the number operated in 1906. This is a natural result of the exhaustion of the rich gravels and of the acquisition of large areas of placer ground by dredge mining companies. The number of deep mines operated

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