THE WEAI.T1I OF NATION'S.

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mine, and may either work it himself or give it in lease toanother, without the consent of the owner of the land, towhom, however, a very small acknowledgment must be paidupon working it. In both regulations the sacred rights ofprivate property are sacrificed to the supposed interests ofpublic revenue.

The same encouragement is given in Peru to the discoveryand working of new gold-mines; and in gold the king’s taxamounts only to a twentieth part of the standard metal. Itwas once a fifth, and afterwards a tenth, as in silver; but itwas found that the work could not bear even the lowest ofthese two taxes. If it is rare, however, say the same authors,Frezier and Ulloa, to find a person who has made his for-tune by a silver, it is still much rarer to fiud one whohas done so by a gold-mine. This twentieth part seems tobe the whole rent which is paid by the greater part of thegold-mines of Chili and Peru . Gold too is much more liableto be smuggled than even silver; not only on account of thesuperior value ot the metal in proportion to its bulk, but onaccount of the peculiar way in which nature produces it.Silver is very seldom found virgin, but, like most other metals,is generally mineralized with some other body, from which itis impossible to separate it in such quantities as will pay forthe expense, but by a very laborious and tedious operation,which cannot well be carried on but in workhouses erectedfor the purpose, and therefore exposed to the inspection ofthe king’s officers. Gold, on the contrary, is almost alwaysfound virgin. It is sometimes found in pieces of some bulk ;even when mixed in small and almost insensible particleswith sand, earth, and other extraneous bodies, it can be se-parated from them by a very short and simple operation,which can be carried on in any private house by any bodywho is possessed of a small quantity of mercury. If the king’stax, therefore, is but ill paid upon silver, it is likely to bemuch worse paid upon gold; and rent must make a muchsmaller part of the price of gold than even of that of silver.

The lowest price at which the precious metals can be sold,or the smallest quantity of other goods for which they canbe exchanged during any considerable time, is regulated bythe same principles which fix the lowest ordinary price of allother goods. The stock which must commonly be employed,,the food, clothes, and lodging which must commonly be con-sumed in bringing them from the mine to the market, deter-

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