196
CHAP. XXIV.
silver and gold brought to Europe annually atthat time to be forty-three million five hundredthousand piastres, of which he supposes there pastto Asia ,
By means of the Levant trade 4,000,000By the Cape of Good Hope 17)500,000By the way of Kiacha and
2.5,500,000 dollars;or, at the rate we have adopted, T5,818,750 sterling.This would lead to the opinion that nearly two-thirds of the gold and silver furnished by the mineswere required and supplied to Asia ; which seemsimprobable, considering the general poverty of itsnumerous inhabitants, and the small quantity ascompared with Europe of the several commoditieswhich furnished subjects of exchange.
We should doubt if in the early parts of theperiod, when the supplies from America w 7 eresmaller, the trade of the east could require nearlythe same proportion of those supplies as at theperiod when Humboldt made his calculation. Thetrade of England at the latter part of the period,when, with the exception of the United States ofAmerica , she engrossed the whole commerce ofthe east, did not require a regular supply of theprecious metals to nearly the extent which Hum-boldt has averaged it at, but much nearer to two-fifths than to two-thirds of that quantity.