186

WEAR OF COIN.

CHAP. XXIII.

or on that of the modern continental kingdoms,whose silver money was of far inferior fineness.For on silver as on gold coins the rate of loss willincrease in the same proportion as the fineness ofthe silver in the pieces is diminished: and therate will be farther increased as the size and weightof the pieces, as is the case with the continentalcoin, is less.

It may now be proper to advert to the groundson which the rate of loss by friction on the moneyof ancient times has been assumed to be one partin three hundred and sixty annually. In remoteantiquity gold coins were unknown till long aftersilver coins had been fabricated, and, descendinglower, when such coins had been introduced, theamount of the silver very far exceeded that of thegold money. It is impossible to form an accurateor even an approximate estimate of the relativeamount of the two kinds of money. It becomes,therefore, necessary for the purposes of calculationto frame a supposititious relation. We assume thenthat the proportionate amount of the gold moneyto the silver money was as one to five, or that fivetimes as much silver as of gold circulated. Thisrate has not been fixed upon without much consi-deration of the low prices of all commodities whichrequired for their exchange only the lower kindof money; of the product of the mines throughthe several ages, and of the relative value of goldto silver in the different periods of history.