early day available, comparing it with the gold output of the same countries in 1897. And first of the United States:
"Inclosed you will find an estimate made by the agents of the bureau of the gold yield of the several States and Territories in 1898. The aggregate outturn was $65,782,667. It must be clearly borne in mind that this is only an estimate, not the ascertained actual production. In 1897 the gold product of the United States was $57,363,000. Assuming the estimate of the gold product of the United States in 1898 to be correct, there was an increase in the latter year over the gold yield of 1897, in round numbers, of $8,420,000. '
"The gold product of the Witwatersrand in 1898 was 4,295,602 ounces crude, and of the whole of the South African Republic 4,555,009 ounces crude, representing a value of $79,801,025.
"As the gold product of the Transvaal in 1897 was $57,33,861, the increase in 1898 was $22,167,164. The figures here given are those published in all the leading papers interested in such matters in England and on the European continent. They are not, any more than the figures given below, official to the Bureau of the Mint.
"I have not yet seen any figures of the total gold product of Australia in 1898, but the output of five out of the seven colonies has been published. The figures are as follows:
| 1897. Ounces crude. |
1898. Ounces crude. | |
| New South Wales | 292,217 | 341,722 |
| New Zealand | 251,645 | 280,176 |
| Queensland | 805,928 | 918,100 |
| Victoria | 812,765 | 837,258 |
| West Australia | 674,997 | 1,050,183 |
| Total | 2,837,549 | 3,527,439 |
| 2,837,549 | ||
| 689,890 |
"There was an increase in the gold product of these five colonies of $13,107,910, the ounce crude averaging about $19 in value. The total gold product of Australia in 1898 was, as I estimate it, about $67,792,000. In 1897 it was $55,684,182. As yet no figures of the gold output of the two Australian colonies—Tasmania and South Australia—have come under my observation.
"Persons not connected with the bureau, but whose opinions are entitled to respect, have estimated the increase in India's gold output in 1898 at about $500,000, and in that of Canada (including the Klondike) at $8,000,000. I have thus far no data on which to
