ACCOUNTING FOR GOLD AND SILVER MINES: THE DEVELOPMENT OF COST ACCOUNTING

This study found evidence which supports the thesis that cost accounting techniques evolved rapidly during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The cost accounting system employed by the leading mines of the Comstock Lode during the 1870' s is compared to a system used in the Cripple Creek district of Colorado during the first decade of the twentieth century. The cost accounting techniques of the mining industry appear to have developed rapidly during this period from crude to sophisticated systems.