Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. The last ten years has been notable for the large number of Gold-Mining Propositions which have been placed before the public, a great portion of which appear to have been purely speculative, and the present collection of statistics and data relating to gold-mining companies has been formed and arranged with the view to assist those who may be inclined to invest in gold-mining to discriminate between purely speculative propositions and those which present the elements of commercial success.<br><br>The nominal capital of the companies interested in gold-mining appears to be over four hundred and fifty million pounds sterling, and the success or failure of a business of this magnitude cannot but be of considerable importance to the public generally.