not yet, so far as a large number of them are concerned--entering into the full use of them, it is obvious that future mining operations must not only enjoy the same favouring circumstances as those which enabled the huge mining output of the past, but a very much better environment, through the more general use of all those methods which experience and science have shown to be advisable. As a consequence, and in the measure of the value of these improvements, will the effective output be ameliorated from now onwards. The value of the improved circumstances of the mining industry alluded to is convertible into figures in the terms of working costs and divisible dividends. The former may be said to be the barometer of the latter. In the past, in the early days of the mining industry, when the problems of mine equipment and gold extraction and winning were only imperfectly understood, the wasteful expenditure of money on inefficient methods and appliances swallowed up in many cases every vestige of profit. [Illustration: CYANIDE WORKS. WITWATERSRAND GOLD-MINING CO. (Photo by Horace W. Nicholls, Johannesburg)] It was incidental to the first operations on the then unknown geological formation of the Rand, when the very science of the goldfields had to be created. Costs of working on the Rand are now, through the excellent system devised by the Chamber of Mines, tabulated so that the outlay of individual mines, or of the mining industry in the aggregate, may be seen at any moment at a glance. For instance, taking the record for the eight years from 1890 to 1898 inclusive, for example, the working costs ranged from 80.8 per cent. of the total value of the gold produced by eighty-five companies in 1890 down to 68.1 per cent. in 1898, the last full year before the war, the decrease showing the extent of the progress made in reducing the working costs. Simultaneously the dividends increased from 19.2 to 31.9 per cent., testifying to the close kinship with the costs factor. These figures are a general average taken over the aggregate of the mines working, and do not represent the ratios of working costs of individual mines, which differ of course according to the greater richness of the ore, the fewer difficulties to be dealt with in winning it, and the methods employed to secure the end in view. This is exemplified by the fact that in a few of the best equipped mines costs have been brought down to as low as 17s. 6d. per ton, while on others they rise to 79s. 6d. and above. The Robinson mine is a case where, despite adverse circumstances, the enlightened employment of the latest appliances of science and mechanics has resulted in reducing costs to an extremely low level. In 1888 the working costs of the mine were 72s. 1d. per ton; in 1892 they were reduced to 46s. 5d., and in 1896 to 30s. 11d. They have subsequently been reduced to a still lower figure, and this despite the fact that the ore changed from an oxidised