THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

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gold mines. Though the produce of the greater part of me-tallic mines, therefore, varies, perhaps, still more from yearto year than that of the greater part of corn-fields, those va-riations have not the same effect upon the price of the onespecies of commodities, as upon that of the other.

Variations in the Proportion between the respectiveValues of Gold and Silver .

Before the discovery of the mines of America , the value offine gold to fine silver was regulated in the different mintsof Europe , between the proportions of one to ten and one totwelve; that is, an ounce of fine, gold was supposed to beworth from ten to twelve ounces of fine silver. About themiddle of the last century it came to be regulated, betweenthe proportions of one to fourteen and one to fifteen; that is,an ounce of fine gold came to be supposed worth betweenfourteen and fifteen ounces of fine silver. Gold rose in itsnominal value, or in the quantity of silver which was givenfor it. Both metals sunk in their real value, or in the quan-tity of labour which they could purchase; but silver sunkmore than gold. Though both the gold and silver minesof America exceeded in fertility all those which had everbeen known before, the fertility of the silver mines had, itseems, been proportionably still greater than that of thegold ones.

The great quantities of silver carried annually from Eu-rope to India, have, in some of the English settlements, gra-dually reduced the value of that metal in proportion to gold.In the mint of Calcutta , an ounce of fine gold is supposed tobe worth fifteen ounces of fine silver in the same manner asin Europe . It is in the mint, perhaps, rated too high for thevalue which it bears in the market of Bengal. In China ,the proportion of gold to silver still continues as one toten, or one to twelve. In Japan , it is said to be as one toeight.

The proportion between the quantities of gold and silverannually imported into Europe , according to Mr. Meggens’saccount, is as one to twenty-two nearly; that is, for one ounceof gold there are imported a little more than twenty-twoounces of silver. The great quantity of silver sent annuallyto the East Indies reduces, he supposes, the quantities of thosemetals which remain in Europe , to the proportion of oneto fourteen or fifteen the proportion of their values. The pro -