i86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



point of value to tlio wants of retail trade, that in the former country- 

 it is made more useful by being halved and quartered, and in the lat- 

 ter is replaced with some even cheaper metal, as iron, or spelter. The 

 wages in all such countries do not in general exceed twenty to twenty- 

 five cents a day, and the sum of such wages, when represented in 

 money, must be capable of division into as many parts in order to be 

 exchanged for the many daily necessities of an individual or a family. 

 But with wages at twenty-five cents per day, the use of coined gold 

 would obviously be impracticable. The equivalent of a day's labor in 

 gold would be too small to be conveniently handled ; the equivalent 

 of an hom-'s labor would be smaller than a pin's head. And in a lesser 

 degree would be the inconvenience of using coined silver for effecting 

 the division of similar small wages.* 



In countries of higher civilization, but still of comparatively low 

 prices and limited exchanges (and these last mainly internal or domes- 

 tic), silver naturally takes the place of copper as the coin medium of 

 exchange and as the standard of value ; and as more than a thousand 

 million people are the inhabitants of such countries, silver, reck- 

 oning transactions by number and probably also by amount, is to-day 

 the principal money metal of the world. 



On the other hand, in countries of high wages, rapid financial 

 transactions, and extensive foreign commercial relations, the natural 

 tendencies are altogether different, and favor the more extensive use 

 of gold for money, M'ithout at the same time displacing from their 

 legitimate monetary spheres either copper or silver. 



The metal coinage system of the world is not therefore " mono- 



* lu many of the sugar-producing islands of the West Indies, the greatest number of 

 the separate retail purchases at the established stores do not exceed from two to three cents 

 in value. In the Island of Trinidad, probably 75 per cent of an annual importation of 

 about 22,000,000 pounds cf brcadstuffs (110,000 barrels) pass into the ownership of the 

 laboring-classes (whose average annual consumption is e.-timated at 31 pounds per head), 

 through purchases for cash of quantities rarely exceeding a pound at any one time. 



Corca, a country which until recently lias been almost unknown to the civilized world, 

 affords another striking illustration of the principle that the kind of money a people 

 will have and use, if left free to choose, will be determined by the nature of their ex- 

 changes, through what may be termed a natural process of evolution, and not by artificial 

 arrangements. Thus, Corea has been proved to be a very poor country ; raising little more 

 of any one product than will suffice for home consumption ; and with a very restricted 

 internal trade, owing to small production and the lack of facilities for personal inter- 

 communication and product distribution. To a majority of her people a monthly income 

 C(iuivalent to two or three dollars, is represented to be sufficient to meet all their necessi- 

 ties. Yet even under these unfavorable and limited conditions of exchange, money has 

 been found a necessity; and has come into use in Corea, in some imknowu manner, in 

 the shape of small metallic coinage — nominally copper, but really a sort of spelter-piece 

 — 300 to the dollar. With the opening of the ports of the country, a demand for cer 

 tain foreign products has been created ; and these, when obtained in exchange for hides 

 and gold-dust, are sold to the people in quantities so small, that only coins of the value 

 and character mentioned can be conveniently used as media of exchange — kerosene, for 

 example, being sold by the half-gill, and matches in bunches of a dozen. 



