On the Fluctuations in the Production of Gold, considered with reference to the Problems of State Economy.

By Alex. von Humboldt.

In this little tract, obligingly forwarded to us, (and intended, we presume, for some of the literary periodicals of Germany,) we find a curious theme, handled with great neatness and ingenuity.

There is not, indeed, disclosed in it much positive novelty, either of fact or speculation; but comprehensive views, variety of topics, considerable sprightliness, and an habitual clearness of expression, capable of making philosophic truth intelligible to the multitude, without sacrificing, in any degree, its dignity or essential strictness--these, the common recommendations of all M. von Humboldt's works, are conspicuous in this; and throw attractions over a subject apparently exhausted in dry reports on bullion and cash payments.

A few centuries ago, it was thought that gold was a production only of the hottest countries.

Columbus, when sailing along the coast of Cuba, wrote in his journal,-- "to judge by the great heat, this country must be rich in gold." A similar groundless belief, we may remark, respecting the climate prolific of diamonds is maintained in some publications of our own day.

Nevertheless, diamonds, and still more abundantly, gold, are now found in the Uralian Mountains, under the 65th degree of north latitude: and the Siberian gold mines, situated on the slopes of the northern ramifications of the Altai Mountains, are daily disclosing new treasures.

The increased productiveness of the Siberian gold mines, within the last quarter of a century, stimulates M. von Humboldt to vindicate the statements of Herodotus and Ctesias, the former of whom places, in the heart of Asia, in the country of the Aramasps, mines of gold guarded by griffons; the latter sets somewhere between Persia and India, the auriferous soil which was excavated and exposed to view by ants nearly as large as foxes.

But whatever may have been the veritable groundwork of these stories, it appears to us to be out of the power of ingenious erudition to strip them of their vagueness and fabulous character. M. von Humboldt, whose imagination is as active as his reasoning faculty, struggles in vain to give them precision and authenticity.

He might, however, have corroborated his conjecture that the gold mines of Central Asia, and the Ural, were wrought in very ancient times, by stating that in all those mines, at the present day, are found relics of antiquity belonging to a people different from those who now possess the soil.

The following observations have greater value:--

We learn from the acute researches of Boekh, how, on the opening of the East by the Persian wars, and by the expedition of the great Macedonian to India, gold gradually accumulated in European Greece, so that in the time of Demosthenes, for example, the precious metals had sunk to a fifth of the value which they had in the days of Solon.

The stream then ran from east to west, and so copious was the influx of gold, that its relative value to silver, which, in the time of Herodotus, was as 13 to 1, was, at the death of Alexander, only as 10 to 1. The less universal were the communications of trade in the ancient world, the greater and more sudden must have been the alterations in the relative value of gold and silver.

Thus, in consequence of local accumulations of the precious metals, we find that in Rome, just after the conquest of Syracuse, gold was to silver as 17 [Formel] to 1; whereas, under Julius Caesar, its relative value was, for some time, but as 8 [Formel] to 1. The less the quantity of the precious metals actually existing in a country, the more easily can a sudden influx of them occasion these excessive variations of their value.

The civilized world is at present assured of stability in the value of the precious metals, by the extent and rapidity of the commerce which establishes their equilibrium, and by the great quantities of gold and silver already collected.

After the revolution in Spanish America, the annual production of the precious metals fell, for some years, to one-third of its former amount, yet the oscillations of their relative value, during that period, were slight, and hardly ascribable to the decreased production.

In confirmation of this remark, we may refer to the recent experience of this country.

In the course of ten years--from 1817 to 1827--the Bank of England coined 1,294,000 marks of gold, (in value 38,130,000l. sterling); and yet this great demand for gold raised its relative value only four-and-a-half per cent.

In the present state of the civilized world, so many circumstances operate together on the price of the precious metals, that considerable and partial fluctuations in their relative value are almost impossible.

Formerly, however, society felt many shocks from this cause, without knowing whence they came:

Bishop Latimer preached his famous sermon before Edward VI., complaining indignantly of the great increase in the prices of all the necessaries of life, in the year 1548, just three years after the discovery of the mines of Potosi.

The mass of the precious metals (says M. von Humboldt) which was brought to Europe during the period that elapsed from the discovery of America till the outbreak of the Mexican revolution, was 10,400,000 Castilian marks of gold, (worth about three hundred millions sterling,) and 533,700,000 marks of silver; together worth 5,940 millions of piastres.

The due allowance being made for the loss of bulk sustained in the process of refinement, the silver taken from the American mines in the above-mentioned period would be sufficient to form a ball, or solid globe, of pure silver, eighty-nine feet in diameter.

It is curious to compare the mass of silver yielded by Spanish America, during 318 years, with the mass of that useful metal, iron, annually wrought by single European states.

According to M. von Dechen, a well-informed geologist, globes of pure iron, representing the quantities annually produced, would require, for Great Britain 157, for France 118, and for Prussia 80 feet in diameter.

M. von Humboldt, after calling attention to the circumstance that the fountains of mineral wealth are not perennial; that the richest mines are, in time, exhausted; and that, owing to these alterations in the springs, the stream of riches has sometimes flowed from east to west, and sometimes in the contrary direction; proceeds to show that the world has no cause to dread a lack of gold.

From the earliest ages, as soon as one auriferous deposit has ceased to be productive, another has replaced it; and the precious metals, wherever they are found, soon force their way into universal circulation.

Contemporaneously with the decline in the productiveness of the Spanish American mines, (which, owing to the energy of some English companies, however, have in some measure recovered their former importance), the gold of the Uralian Mountains began to flow into the European markets.

In 1821 the produce of the Ural was about 1000lb. weight; it continued, however, to increase regularly till 1832, when it amounted to 15,200lb. (worth about 670,000l. sterling).

From that time it has slowly declined; but its diminished value has been compensated, since 1834, by the discovery of new gold mines in the Altai, or Altaiin Oola, (that is, in Mongolian, the gold mountain).

These have gone on increasing in value; so that their produce is now nearly half of that of the Uralian mines, and in 1837 the Russian gold produced was worth 800,000l. sterling.

In the United States also, the production of gold increased, in ten years--from 1824 to 1834 --from the value of 5,000 to that of 898,000 dollars: from that time it has considerably declined.

The gold was found chiefly in North Carolina and Georgia.

The amount of the precious metals drawn from the mines of Siberia and of the United States are inconsiderable indeed in comparison with that poured forth from the mines of Mexico and Peru, yet they are sufficient to invalidate the opinion which confines the great deposits of the noble metals to tropical countries.

The multiplication of sources also, however feeble they may severally be, obviously lessens the importance which might be attached to the drying up of the great streams of the precious metals, and must tend to quiet the apprehensions of those who contemplate with anxiety a dearth of bullion.

It is impossible to read this little treatise of M. von Humboldt, without feeling an earnest desire to investigate closely the operation of money as an element of national prosperity.

It would appear, at first view, that the greater the quantity of money in circulation--the prices of necessaries, and the amount of population being supposed to remain unchanged--the greater must be the prosperity of the community.

The value of the money in circulation indicates the activity of the traffic which ministers to the comforts of society.

But this problem is, in reality, extremely complicated; inasmuch as all the elements vary, from the operation of many circumstances besides those which fall under immediate consideration.

We, therefore, recommend it to the care of statists, to be carefully analyzed and fitted for application.