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TIIE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

imported into Cadiz and Lisbon . But the consumption ofBirmingham alone, at the rate of fifty thousand pounds ayear, is equal to the bundred-and-twentieth part of this an-nual importation at the rate of six millions a year. Thewhole annual consumption of gold and silver, therefore, inall the different countries of the world where those metals areused, may perhaps be nearly equal to the whole annual pro-duce. The remainder may be no more than sufficient tosupply the increasing demand of all thriving countries. Itmay even have fallen so far short of this demand as some-what to raise the price of those metals in the European market.

The quantity of brass and iron annually brought from themine to the market is out of all proportion greater than thatof gold and silver. We do not, however, upon this account,imagine that those coarse metals are likely to multiply be-yond the demand, or to become gradually cheaper andcheaper. Why should we imagine, that the precious metalsare likely to do so? The coarse metals, indeed, though harder,are put to much harder uses, and, as they are of less value,less care is employed in their preservation. The preciousmetals, however, are not necessarily immortal any more thanthey, but are liable too to be lost, wasted, and consumed ina great variety of ways.

The price of all metals, though liable to slow and gradualvariation, varies less from year to year than that of almostany other part of the rude produce of land ; and the priceof the precious metals is even less liable to sudden variationsthan that of the coarse ones. The durableness of metalsis the foundation of this extraordinary steadiness of price.The corn which was brought to market last year will be all,or almost all, consumed long before the end of this year.But some part of the iron which was brought from the minetwo or three hundred years ago, may be still in use, and per-haps some part of the gold which was brought from it twoor three thousand years ago. The different masses of cornwhich in different years must supply the consumption of theworld, will always be nearly in proportion to the respectiveproduce of those different years. But the proportion betweenthe different masses of iron which may be in use in two dif-ferent years, will be very little affected by any accidentaldifference in the produce of the iron mines of those two years;and the proportion between the masses of gold will be stillless affected by any such difference in the produce of the