The amount of gold yielded in the reduction of copper ores was about $5,500,000. It is probable that this amount will be gradually increased, and can be relied on to last many years. From the lead ores a little over $2,000,000 worth of gold was taken. This will probably slowly decrease for the next ten or twenty years. From gold and silver-bearing quartz mines $55,000,000 was taken. No calculation can be made as to the amount of gold contained in quartz mines. New discoveries are always probable and many new mines are opened up each year, but their value can only be estimated as the work in them progresses. Just how long they will last nobody knows, but it would seem that their decline is far off. The government report says, "Unless very important new discoveries are made it is thought unlikely that the production of gold in the United States will rise much above $110,000,000; nor is it likely that it will sink below $60,000,000 within a long period of years." The amount of gold used in the United States is about equal to the production. Nearly $80,000,000 is coined into money, and about half as much is used in the arts,--that is, for jewelry, tableware, in dentistry, in bookbinding, and various chemical processes. The quantity used in the arts has doubled since 1900. In 1907 the stock of gold coin in the United States, according to the Director of the Mint, was $1,600,000,000, which is almost exactly one-fifth of the gold coin of the world. The production of gold is rapidly increasing. Since 1850 we have mined three times as much gold as in all the previous time since the discovery of America. Such rapid production greatly shortens the life of the gold supply. When the gold fields of southern Africa were first opened they were said to be inexhaustible; but they have been mined so rapidly, and the supply has proved so far short of the first excited estimates that experts say that the entire region will be almost exhausted within twenty years. The loss of gold in mining and refining is comparatively small. In extracting gold from the cheaper ores the percentage of loss is large; but as only a small part of the gold is gained in this way the total loss is relatively small. By other methods ninety-five per cent. or more is saved. In many cases the loss is too small to be considered. Unlike other minerals little gold is destroyed by use. It is melted and remelted, all scraps are used, even the sweepings from the mint and from manufacturing goldsmiths' shops are saved and the gold used. The waste of the world's gold and silver would be much greater but for the use of paper money, bank checks, and notes. Their very general use keeps the gold as a reserve, held in banks and storage vaults much of the time. If it were in constant use, the continual rubbing together of the coins would mean a no less steady, though slight, wearing away of their surface. This is very noticeable in old silver coins, which are kept in more constant circulation.