Except for small recoveries of gold by Indians and Spanish explorers, gold was first discovered and mined in the United States in North Carolina in 1799. This initial discovery was followed by others in the 1820's and 1830's in several of the other Appalachian States. These States produced significant amounts of gold until the Civil War. After the discovery of gold in California in 1848, the Western States contributed the bulk of this country's gold production. New discoveries in widely separated areas in the Western States followed in rapid succession.From 1799 through 1965, the United States produced about 307,182,000 ounces of gold, which at the price of $35 per ounce would be valued in round numbers at $10,751 million. In an analysis of gold-production trends, the period 1932-59 is particularly informative; the effect of the increase of the price of gold in 1934 from $20.67 to $35 per ounce is clearly shown, as is the effect of a fixed selling price of gold combined with rising costs of labor and material in post-World War II years.Districts that have produced more than 10,000 ounces are distributed in 31 States. Five States-California, Colorado, South Dakota, Alaska, and Nevada-have yielded more than 75 percent of the gold produced in this country. Of the more than 500 districts that have produced more than 10,000 ounces of gold, 45 have produced more than 1 million ounces, and four-Lead, S.D., Cripple Creek, Colo, Grass Valley, Calif., and Bingham, Utah-have produced more than 10 million ounces each. The 25 leading districts have produced about half the gold mined in the United States, and the 508 districts that are described account for roughly 90 to 95 percent.In general, gold is derived from three types of ore: (1) ore in which gold is the principal metal of value, (2) basemetal ore which yields gold as a byproduct, and (3) placers. In the early years, most of the gold was mined from placers, but after 1873, though placers were by no means depleted and continued to contribute significantly to our annual output, production came chiefly from lode deposits. The search for gold led to the discovery and development of many silver, lead, copper, 11nd zinc deposits from which gold was recovered as a byproduct. Since the late 1930's, byproduct gold has become a significant fraction of the annual domestic gold output.Most of the gold deposits in the United States are closely associated with and probably genetically related to small batholiths, stocks, and satellitic intrusive bodies of quartz monzonitic composition that range in age from Jurassic to Tertiary. Some deposits, as those in the Southeastern States, may be genetically related to granitic bodies that were intruded at the close of Paleozoic time, and some deposits, as at Jerome, Ariz., are Precambrian in age.Alaska, the fourth largest gold-producing State, yielded a 2 PRINCIPAL GOLD-PRODUCING DISTRICTS OF THE UNITED STATES City, Orofino, Boise Basin, Florence, and Warren, and a brief period of feverish activity followed. By 1870, many of the richer place...