288 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



demand for coins, that if made by law the basis of money, it could be 

 depended upon to exhibit permanent stability of value. Binietalism, 

 on the other hand, was founded upon the idea that in the development 

 of the resources of the globe by man the discoveries of new sources 

 of the two metals had, in the past, occurred in a roughly alternate 

 sequence, would continue to occur so in the future, and that if both were 

 admitted freely to unlimited coinage at an agreed ratio, based upon 

 the proportionate tonnage output in the past, as far as records went, 

 in the long run, through any considerable term of years, this tonnage 

 ratio would be maintained. If so, the value ratio would be justified, 

 and the two would float side by side. It was also held that the world 

 needed both, because neither could be produced in sufficient quantity to 

 meet the demand for coin. There was much in the way of historic fact 

 to support these views. Considering only the era since the discovery 

 of the new world, which is as far back as statistics on the subject are 

 at all reliable, there was first the great output of gold from the Brazils, 

 Venezuela and Colombia, which was followed by the silver flood from 

 Mexico, Bolivia and Peru. Later came the almost simultaneous dis- 

 covery of the Australian and Californian gold mines, after which oc- 

 curred the vast silver output from the Nevada, Utah and Colorado 

 silver deposits. But during the height of each of these metallic waves 

 it became a strain on commerce to maintain the theoretical parity as 

 based upon the average output, and because united international co- 

 operation towards that end could not be secured, the effort was finally 

 abandoned. 



Since the civilized world became welded together by commercial 

 ties as well as by railroad and steamship lines, the post office, the tele- 

 graph and cable, and now finally the telephone; as banks of deposit, 

 discount and issue multiplied, and exchanges for produce as well as 

 for stocks and bonds became fixities in all the great financial centers, 

 the use of paper in the way of warehouse receipts, bills of exchange, 

 checks, drafts, bank and government legal tender notes, has enormously 

 expanded, so that among the wealthy and well-to-do the use of coin for 

 money has already decreased almost to the vanishing point, and there 

 is a positive dislike to a silver coin larger than an inch in diameter, and 

 a decided preference to leave all gold coins in the custody of the banks, 

 and use in place their notes and bills, or those issued by the govern- 

 ments. This is a perfectly natural evolution, and one that is bound to 

 continue until the average citizen above the class of wage earner will 

 carry only enough visible money to meet the spot cash necessities of the 

 day, and will transact all the balance of his business with a check book. 

 The process is already so far advanced that few people besides travelers 

 and sports now-a-days carry upon their persons or in their homes the 

 equivalent of more than five to ten dollars in money. What is to be 



