84 Wzsconsi?! Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



prices, gold actually flews from where it is worth more to 

 where it is worth less. In a correspondence on this subject, 

 which I had with Prof. Perry of Williams College, this ap- 

 parent conflict with a well established law, was what staggered 

 him as to the soundness of the principle I have endeavored 

 to develop. But this conflict is only in appearance; for, 

 although the gold imported to raise the volume of money to the 

 new volume of prices, is actually depreciated below its general 

 commercial value, still it is worth more to tis than the foreign 

 goods we would get instead, clear of the custom house. The 

 demand for our exports, we have seen, is not diminished by 

 the duties on imposts, and we must import something in ex- 

 change for them, or give them away. Give them away we 

 will not, and in importing gold in preference to goods, we 

 only choose the better of two bargains, either of which is bad 

 enough. 



The elements of this calculation are liable to some modifica- 

 tions, both in the direction of a greater and of a less deprecia- 

 tion ; the greater from the vastly larger proportion of farm pro- 

 ducts which are consumed by the agricultural population and 

 never become the subjects of exchange at all, than can be pre- 

 dicated of manufactured products; which will considerably re- 

 duce the agricultural element in the total of exchanges and 

 make the average rise in prices and the depreciation greater ; 

 and then the less, as money used in the transfer of real estate 

 will add to the volume of non-importablesand tend to diminish 

 the average per cent, of prices and depreciation. But it is 

 probable that these opposite tendencies will nearly balance 

 each other, and leave the results I have arrived at not very 

 wide of the practical truth. 



Thus far we have reasoned upon the assumption of a purely 

 metallic medium of exchange. Will the introduction of paper 

 currency change the result? Not in the least. If a local cur- 

 rency exists in the meantime, equal in volume to the gold 

 which would otherwise have been imported and held in the 



