66 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



to be, for if you put a score of gold coins in a buckskin bag, and shake 

 them up vigorously for a few hours, you will find that each has lost 

 slightly in weight in the operation ; and in the bag, in the shape of fine 

 particles, will be the gold that has been rubbed from each coin by 

 contact with its neighbor. 



This is what is called " coin sweating," and if you try it to prove 

 whether my statement is correct or not, do so by yourself and keep the 

 matter dark, for it is against the laws of all countries, and punishable 

 by as severe penalties as those meted out to the counterfeiter. For in 

 appearance the coin will not be altered by a moderate amount of 

 such treatment, and if a man should steadily employ himself in the 

 operation, and could be continually getting a stock of fresh coins to 

 operate on, he might be able to accumulate as much as fifty cents' worth 

 of gold dust per day as the result of his labors. 



But it will not do to confuse in one's mind the metal gold with the 

 coin gold. For while the former under the existing laws has an ab- 

 solutely unchangeable value, expressed in terms of money, the gold 

 coins of different nations vary continually in value as expressed in 

 terms of each other. Thus, the English sovereign fluctuates from 

 $4.82 to $4.89 in American money, and the other European gold 

 coins all vary likewise. This is due, of course, to the exigencies 

 of international exchange, and to the fact that each coin is legal tender 

 for the payment of a debt only in the nationality whose mint has 

 issued it. Thus, when an English wheat or cotton merchant has bought 

 a shipload of either of these commodities from an American producer 

 he can not pay for it in English coin, but must buy American coin to 

 discharge his debt. This he arranges through his bank, and if the de- 

 mand for American coin for the payment of such debts by Europeans 

 is active the price for the American dollar, as expressed in terms of 

 foreign coin, advances little by little until it reaches a point where the 

 English merchant (or his banker) will find it just as cheap to ship 

 sovereigns (or even uncoined bullion) over to America, take it to the 

 mint, have it melted and manufactured into American coins, and with 

 these discharge the obligation. When such a condition of affairs occurs 

 the gold-exporting point is said to have been attained in London, and 

 the gold-importing point in New York, and because of it you can never 

 tell whether the gold you hold in your hand, though bearing the God- 

 dess of Liberty on its face, has come from the mines of America or 

 from those of South Africa or China. But it makes no difference, 

 /or the inherent physical qualities of the metal are the same, no matter 

 at what place in the earth's crust it originated. 



However, we are considering gold the metal, and not gold the coin, 

 and in again reverting to the subject it is necessary to call attention 

 to another very marked characteristic of the metal, which it shares 



