The methods of extracting gold theretofore had still been in large part of a primitive sort.

But intricate machinery was taking the place of crude tools, chemical processes had been introduced (notably, the cyanide process), and the principal product began to come from the regular and certain working of deep mines rather than from chance surface discoveries.

In many parts of the world were enormous deposits of low-grade ores, before useless, that could be worked economically by the new methods.
The general price level fluctuated, but on the whole tended downward between 1884 and 1893 (the year of panic), and reached a minimum in the year 1895 in Germany, 1896 in England, and 1897 in America.

It is noteworthy that the very year 1896, which marked the height of the political agitation to abandon the gold standard for silver, saw the gold production for the first time in all history surpass the two hundred million dollar mark.

The gold output had caught up with, and began to surpass, the normal monetary demands of the world, meaning by that phrase, the amount of gold needed to maintain a stationary level of prices.
Sec.12.