Show WORLDS warl DS GOLD al X I 1 A 3 A Z weighing gold bars in a south african refinery prepared by national geographic society wh W h at 0 1 D C serle of a gold belt more dethree than miles long and from three to ten alzi miles wide in I 1 northern quebec C anada all and d the r recovery C very of thell the golden treasure of the 1 fated steamship egypt which lies 0 on n the floor of the atlantic off brest france have recently b rought tile the precious yellow lellow metal into the world news hardly a day daj pisses passes however with out gold creeping into the headlines ln one day a great nation drops the gold standard stan daid on another day da another nation adds steadily to its stock of gold on another a new mine Is discovered somewhere on oil mother another unusually large iorge shipments of gold cross the atlantic the or the indian ocean despite a universal interest in ilie the gold tile the average man probably has ins liay lazy ideas of the actual amounts of gold cold involved in world stocks annual production and the incessant shipments back and forth between countries to a considerable extent tills 8 is owing to the extremely small unit t tile the 1 flue fine ounce ounce by bv which the weight veigh t of gold Is measured mei lit it will help visualize the amounts of gold that figure in the wo worlds rus news if we construct in fin imagination a super dollar of gold worth one hundred million dollars this super dollar will be a disk one foot thick and just a tiny traction fraction less than 1834 18 feet in diameter dl ameter it will thus retain roughly the shape find and proportion of the ordinary gold dollar will contain a trifle more than cubic feet of gold and will weigh a little less than tons gold production statistics are not available for the period covered by tha tea history of civilization nor even fo for r the christian era but we do have fa fairly irly accurate estimates of the total amount of gold mined tn all parts of the earth since the discovery of america by columbus let us imagine all this gold brought together today lody at one spot and minted into our 0 u r super dollars with the aid of a huge crane we can have these huge yellow chips piled one on top of another to see how high the worlds stack will reach when have been put in place the supply of full dollars will have been exhausted to bring the pile up to date we will have to holst hoist to the top as a capstone a halt half of one of our disks shaped the like halt half a pie and worth only 30 worlds gold in a column here then in a sparkling column 1 8 1 feet in diameter and more tha than n feet high would rest all the gold that has fins been gleaned by of in men en in years of toll the column w would 0 u id be about ai high as a 20 story office boffl ce building and would be worth proximately approximately up during the past the five years a super dollar has fins been added to this world pile approximately every three months about worth of gold each 3 year ear but as soon as we have built up our imaginary stack we must begin pulling it down if we would represent the current gold situation for although almost twenty two and a half billion dollars worth of gold has ha been produced from 1402 to 1932 1032 tills this Is not the amount in sight in the world today nearly half the precious metal represented by our oar imaginary stuck stack has been lost hidden away or used up in industry the making of jewelry the gilding of ornaments and the like the total known stock of gold money and gold bars tn in the world at the end of 1031 was worth approximately eleven tind and a half billion dollars we must therefore discard something like the upper halt half of our cur imaginary stack of gold leaving only of the huge disks in place this foot tower of precious metal that we have built in fancy represents the monetary gold of the world on it are based all monetary systems in so far as they depend on gold but again agaid we vie must olter after our imaginary golden tower at no time of course has bag all the worlds monetary gold been assembled in one country the greatest concentration within the borders of one nation occurred in september 1031 when the amount of gold coln coin and gold cast in bars in the united states slightly exceeded five billion dollars in value in the united states then there could have been built last autumn the greatest tower of gold that it has ever been possible to construct of the hul holdings dings of a single nation a stack of GO 50 of our gigantic hundred m III ton dollar chips at the same time france could have piled up 25 of tile the great disks from frances sizable 25 2 foot cyl cl inder of gold the national towers lovers 0 of f precious metal fell to very modest piles great britain in september ISM 1031 could have built a stack little 11 more jore nan bun six feet high she could muster aus ter gold enough for only a little more n 11 re than alx of the super dollars doll ars spain and japan a little more than four belgium three rind a half ger many switzerland and the soviet union three italy the netherlands an and 1 I argentina less than allun three in ila dla less than two and canida canada less than one A striking fact in regard to tile gold holdings of f countries Is that south africa which 0 in the I 1 last a st few centuries lias has produced an amount of gold equal to the unprecedented pile possessed toss essed h by the united states last 1 st autumn held at that time less than enough monetary gold to con one half of one of the hundred million dollar disks gold supply changes to get a vivid idea of the changes in the gold supply of the united states let us imagine all tile the gold movements of 1031 1931 and halt half of 1032 affecting the united states to be con cent rated around this count rys gold tower at the beginning of 1031 1931 forty five full super dollars would have been piled one on the other while on top would have been the forty sixth golden disk with only a tiny wedge missing gradually net gold importations would have built the pile higher before the middle of january the forty sixth disk dish would have been complete by the end of march there would have been 47 by late june 49 40 and by mid september the towers peak would have been reached with 00 50 of the super dollars in place after the middle of september one of the heaviest gold exportation periods over experienced in the united states set in an observer at the in mythical tower of gold would have witnessed feverish activity in removing the huge disks in a little over a month he would have seen more than seven of the mammoth gold units unita lowered froni from the tower and carte carted daway away for shipment overseas by the end of october only 42 of tile the super dollars would have remained then gold would have begun to arrive again at the towers base from imports end and the work of building would have been resumed by the end of 1831 1031 more than 1 13 1 3 of the heavy disks would have been added to the tower bringing it to a height of a little over 44 feet As a final operation of the year we can imagine there being hoisted into place a segment equal to about a third of a super dollar worth representing the gold produced within the borders of the united states during the year less the new gold made into jewelry and used in other industries and arts the count rys tower then after its marked fluctuations would have hae contained at the end of the year of our super dollars roughly one and a quarter less than when the year started our holding varies since the beginning of 1032 1932 five and a half more of the super dollars have left the united states during the latter part of june the united states gold stock had been reduced to 30 39 of the million dollar units at the same time great britain possessed less than five and frances pile had grown to 31 during the past 18 years the column that could have been built with the stock of gold in the united states at any one time has arisen and fallen like the mercury column of a barometer but in the long run it has grown higher at the outbreak of the world war in 1914 it would have contained approximately 15 of the dollar disks at the close of the war 29 in 1020 1920 it would have been down to 27 in 1024 up to 43 back to 40 in 1028 1918 it would have sprung up to 45 in 1030 1930 and to BO 50 in 1031 the level at which it now rests Is well below the peak of 60 but it Is 13 much higher than at any time in the count rys history except during the last eight years johannesburg south africa Is called the city of gold because it Is situated in the great south african gold producing region was born of the greatest gold discovery known to the modern world and rose to the stature of a city in the space of a few years practically on the deg gins it Is almost on the crest of the iland the CO mile ridge of gold bearing conglomerate from which w alch the worlds greatest stream of gold has haa flowed since 1000 when pro production due passed that of all north america |