Lead experienced a decline, comparing the highest market prices in New York, in January, 1880 and 1885, respectively, of about 39 per cent; or, comparing the average of prices for New York and London for the same years, about 30 per cent. The world's production of lead between the years 1880 and 1883 appears to have increased in nearly the same ratio, or far in excess of the increase of the world's population within the same period. With an approaching exhaustion of a number of the heaviest lead-producing mines in the Rocky Mountains, United States,[1] and a notable decline in the lead product of British ores (50,328 tons in 1882 as compared with 37,687 tons in 1885), the price of lead tends to increase. The decline in the price of lead, above noted, occasioned the suspension or bankruptcy of many English lead-mining companies, and during the year 1885 much distress from this cause was reported as existing among English lead-miners. The following is an example of another economic disturbance contingent on changes in the production and price of lead: Formerly the domestic supply in the United States of white-lead and of all paints, the basis of which is oxide of lead, was derived almost exclusively from manufactories situated upon the Atlantic seaboard; but with the discovery and working of the so-called silver-lead mines of the States and Territories west of the Mississippi, and the production of large quantities of lead as a product residual, or secondary to silver, the inducements offered for the manufacture of white-lead and lead-paints, through local reductions in the price of the raw material and the saving of freights, have been almost sufficient to destroy the former extensive white-lead and paint business in the eastern sections of the United States, and transfer it to the western.
Nickel, not many years ago, was a scarce metal of limited uses, and commanded comparatively high prices. Latterly the discovery of new and cheaper sources of supply has tended to throw upon the market an amount in excess of the world's present average yearly consumption—estimated at between 800 and 900 tons—and, as a consequence, there has been "over-production, and unsatisfactory prices to dealers." There is, moreover, little prospect that prices in respect to this metal will ever revive—one mine in New Caledonia alone being estimated as capable of producing two or three thousand tons annually, if required; while the discovery of richer and more abundant ore deposits than have ever before been known is reported as having resulted from the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railroad.
Tin.—The production and price experiences of this metal during the last quarter of a century have been very curious. The world's consumption of tin from 1860-'64 constantly tended to be in excess of production, and prices rose from £87 (the lowest figure) in 1864 to £159 (the highest) in 1872. In this latter year the mines of Australia began to produce very largely, and in a short time afforded a
- ↑ Report of the United States Geological Survey, 1886.
