Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/57

Rh thing like twenty-five per cent. The decline was much discussed and feared about 1855 owing to the then novel rate of production; but men get used to all wonderful things, and cease to consider what they get used to. Nevertheless, the force of vast production continues to operate year after year.

So much for the past of gold; now for its future. In 1877 Dr. Suess, of Austria, an eminent geologist, startled the economic and financial world by proving to his own satisfaction that the world's production of gold was destined to decrease and in no very long time to become insignificant. His theory was based on the fact that gold, being one of the heaviest metals, would naturally, during the molten period of the earth, have sunk very far from the surface—too far to be mined successfully. This theory, though not corroborated by any direct or historical evidence, obtained considerable currency, and was an important factor in promoting the sentiment for bimetallism.

Like the other scientific theory that no man could ride a two-wheeled vehicle because of the perpetual tendency to fall over, and another, supposed to be based on the laws of motion, that a ball-pitcher could not "curve" a baseball, this theory has proved to have no foundation in fact. It is now evident that the production of gold for the next fifty years will be altogether unprecedented. This production has been vigorously stimulated by fresh discoveries of mines, by new and cheap mining processes, and by the fall of silver, leading miners to pay greater attention to the other metal. The operation of the latter factor is best seen in