SPANISH EXPERIMENTS IN COINAGE. 593 



traversed, Spain was the chief source through which Europe de- 

 rived the precious metals, yet it could never retain them, in spite 

 of savage laws prohibiting their export ; its people were forced to 

 content themselves with a debased coinage, and at times it could 

 scarce procure enough copper to supply even this. Commercial 

 and industrial enterprise was impossible when no one could know 

 from day to day what was to be the value of the money which 

 was due to him, or in which he was to meet his obligations, and 

 consequently the magnificent resources of the land remained un- 

 developed, while the rest of western Europe was entering on the 

 modern era of industrialism. Once embarked on such a vicious 

 course, return to a permanent standard was too painful a process 

 to be endured, and the efforts made toward it from time to time 

 only aggravated the trouble by increasing the uncertainty, for 

 the distress which they caused was too acute for even Spanish 

 endurance. Thus it dragged on from century to century, while 

 the wealth of the Indies enriched the nations whose commercial 

 instincts taught them the essential necessity of an unvarying 

 standard of value. This was no new discovery, for the long- 

 enduring prosperity of Florentine manufactures and commerce 

 was largely attributable to the jealous care with which the re- 

 public preserved the purity and weight of its coinage, so that 

 the florin became a recognized standard throughout Europe, the 

 honesty of which no one ever questioned. Florence had learned 

 the lesson from the Byzantine Empire, whose historian, Mr. Fin- 

 lay, asserts that its prolonged duration was greatly owing to the 

 wisdom which preserved its coinage unaltered for eight centuries, 

 so that "the concave gold byzants of Isaac II (1185-1203) are pre- 

 cisely the same weight and value as the solidus of Constantino 

 the Great." With the Latin conquest in 1204, barbaric reckless- 

 ness was introduced from the West, and successive debasements 

 of the coinage accompanied the decay and extinction of the empire 

 of the Caesars. Spain affords an exceedingly instructive example 

 of the opposite, inasmuch as its trouble arose from a token cur- 

 rency of small denominations which was incautiously allowed to 

 expand until it dominated the whole financial system, to the ex- 

 clusion of the precious metals. 



The "Australian Snow Country/' as Mr. John Plummer, of Sydney, 

 calls it, includes a I'egion in the neighborhood of Mount Kosciusko and the 

 Munoing- Range where fires and blankets are needed, even during the hot- 

 test days of that continent of summer torridity. Mount Kosciusko, 7,171 feet 

 high, is the highest peak in Australia, but is remarkably easy of ascent. 

 The climb begins twenty-five miles from the top, and is pi*acticable for a 

 drive all the way. There are no trees within several miles of the top, but 

 gigantic mosses grow there and beautiful flowers. 



VOL. LI. 45 



