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CONSUMPTION OF GOLD AND SILVER, chap. xxiv.

CHAPTER XXIV.

On the consumption of gold and silver and on the rate ofprices of commodities from 1700 to 1810.

In a former chapter the stock of metallic wealth inthe form of coin in Europe is estimated at the closeof the year 1699, to have amounted to two hundredand ninety-seven million pounds sterling. Uponthe principle stated in the preceding chapter, thatone part in forty-two of the coin is consumed byfriction in the wear of it, in the space of one hun-dred and ten years between 1700 and 1810, thatstock would be reduced at the end of the periodvery considerably. In the first forty-two years thesum would be reduced to two hundred and sixty-seven million three hundred thousand pounds, inthe second forty-two years to two hundred andforty million five hundred and seventy thousandpounds, and in the twenty-six succeeding years totwo hundred and twenty-six millions.

In the hundred and ten years under considera-tion, the produce of the several mines of America and of Europe , with the gold dust from Africa,has been calculated at the rate of eight millionsannually, or in the whole period at eight hundred