12 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of bullion and specie. The same authority refers to an eminent Eng- 

 lish firm doing business with the East, as stating that " their business 

 could now be conducted with one fifth of the capital formerly em- 

 ployed," which would seem to warrant the inference that the reduction 

 in the necessity for using so much of their capital as was represented 

 by money had also been proportionate. 



For the settlement of international balances — a large function of 

 gold — it is certain that every ounce of this metal — through the great 

 reduction in the time of ocean-transits — is at the present time capable 

 of performing far more service than at any former period ; the time 

 for the transmission of coin and bullion having been reduced in recent 

 years between Australia and England from ninety to forty days, and 

 from New York to Liverpool from twelve or fifteen to eight or nine 

 days. Such an increase of rapidity in doing work is certainly equiva- 

 lent to increase in quantity. 



The statistics of clearing-houses, which are everyv>'here multiply- 

 ing, also show a continued tendency for the settlement of financial 

 obligations without the intervention of either notes or coin ; while in 

 every country which has adopted the " postal money-order " system 

 the rapidity with which the public resort to that method of effecting 

 exchanges is most surprising.* 



In estimating the influence of the diminished production of gold 

 in recent years, it is important to bear in mind a point to which atten- 

 tion has been often heretofore called, and that is, that gold and 

 silver are not like other commodities, of which the greater part of the 

 annual production is annually consumed ; but that their use for the 

 purpose of effecting exchanges does not involve consumption, except 

 by loss and wear ; that the work they have once done they are equally 

 ready to do over and over again, and that every addition to their stock 

 " is an addition to the fund available for exchanges." The aggregate 

 sum by which the yearly average amount of gold available for coin- 

 ing fell off during the period from 1861-'70 as compared with that 

 from 1852-'6(),f when the mines of California and Australia v.ere most 

 productive, was (adopting Mr. Pixley's estimates) less than £100,000,- 

 000 (§500,000,000), a sum absolutely great, but most inconsiderable — 

 less than one sixth of one per cent — in comparison with the amount of 

 gold believed to have been in existence in civilized countries in 1885 ; J 



* The number of " postal "-orders issued by the British Post-Office in 1886 was 18,831,- 

 1 04, representing £7,885,347 ($39,226,735); while money-orders, domestic and foreign, 

 were issued during the same year to the amount of £25,012,337 (8125,061,085). In the 

 countries comprising the Postal Union of Europe, the issue of domestic money-orders had 

 risen in 1885 to the large amount of $1,821,000,000, 



f It is interesting to note that the yearly average amount of gold available for coinage 

 was greater, according to Mr. Pixley's estimates, from 1871-'80 than from 1861-'70. 



\ M. Sauerbeck estimates the total amount of gold in the form of coin and bullion in 

 Europe (excluding the Balkan Peninsula), the United States, and Australia, at the end 

 of 1884, to have been £645,000,000 (-43,225,000,000). 



