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PROPORTION OF COIN

CIIAP. XXVIII.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

On the proportion which that gold and silver which is coinedbears to that existing in other forms.

We have seen that the consumption of goldand silver, and the application of those substancesto other purposes than the fabrication of coin, has,in the last twenty years, exceeded that supplyof them which the mines have afforded. Thegreater part of those metals are converted intocoin almost immediately on their being extractedfrom the mines. This is the case with nearly allthat is collected in what was Spanish America,with the gold of Brasil , and with that obtainedfrom the Russian mines. It must then have beenfrom the stock of coin either recently or ante-cedently formed, that the gold and silver thathave been consumed or appropriated to purposesof ornament must have been drawn. It may besafely inferred that the quantity of coin actuallyin circulation at the end of the term of twentyyears had been diminished. If the view we havetaken be correct, that diminution must haveamounted to one-sixth of the whole circulatingcoin of Europe and America.

How far the portion of the precious metals thuswithdrawn from coin and applied to ornamental