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PART I.

PRODUCTION OF STATES AND TERRITORIES.

9

PRODUCTION OF STATES AND TERRITORIES.

The amount of gold and silver obtained from the mines of the United States during the calendar year 1884 appears to have been increased above the yield of the previous year in gold about $800,000, and in silver, computed at the silver dollar coinage rate, $2,600,000.

In making this estimation the same methods for determining the ag gregate production of the country have been employed as heretofore adopted. The returns and information as to the amount of domestic bullion received at the mints and assay offices, exported to foreign. countries, produced by the various smelters and refineries, transported by railroad and express companies, handled by bankers and dealers and reported to have been yielded by individual mines, have been compared with each other and with the estimates of the production of the several States and Territories submitted to me by experts and officials who have assisted in procuring material for this report.

As depositors of bullion at the mints and assay offices are promptly paid in nearly every case the value of their bullion on the succeeding day, almost the entire gold product of the country, except native gold or bars from private refineries used in the arts, is directly or indirectly sent to the mints and assay offices, where an accurate record is made of its character and description, which, as well as the locality from whence derived, except as to bars from some of the large refineries, are in most cases apparent to the weigh clerks upon inspection or easily ascertained by inquiry of the depositor or knowledge of his business.

From these records monthly reports are forwarded to my office, which cannot overestimate or understate the value of such bullion without showing discrepancies readily discovered and corrected between these statements and the quarterly accounts rendered by the officers, which also give the value and the amount paid for such bullion. The erroneous designation of foreign bullion as domestic rarely happens, except where refined bullion received from private refineries consists of gold bars which, although made up in part from foreign bullion, are recorded as domestic bullion. But the statements kindly furnished me by these refineries show the amount of such bullion, and this amount is deducted, as heretofore, from the reported receipts of domestic gold at the mints and assay offices, or is offset against undeposited and unrefined gold production used in the arts, ornamentation, &c. Indeed it might be claimed that some of the gold deposits reported as foreign bullion are domestic, and that an addition should be made to the estimated production on this account; for the amount of foreign gold bullion reported as deposited at the mints and assay offices annually exceeds, by several hundred thousand dollars, the imports of such foreign bullion entered at the custom-house. But this excess probably arises from the receipt of bullion brought from Nova Scotia and Mexico across the border without being entered in the custom-house returns.

The total deposits of gold and silver and purchases of silver bullion

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