S2 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



in Canadian currency and to the $5.00 gold piece of the United States. 

 The latter contains 116.1 grains fine gold, and the sovereign only 113. 

 This difference of 3.1 grains when added would raise the value of the 

 sovereign so as to make 20/ equal to $5.00 and the dollar equal to 

 4/. This sovereign or rather guinea would not, however, answer well as 

 a coin of account in a decimal system and it would be necessary to use o 

 two guinea denomination for this purpose, inventing a coin say a double 

 guinea, an " Empress " or an " Edward " to represent it. Tihe old 

 guinea having gone entirely out of use, it would seem possible to utilise 

 the term for a coin equivalent to $5.00. In this way the name 

 sovereign or pound would continue to be used for expressing its present 

 value, so long as necessary and until such time as it might be abandoned 

 without inconvenience. 



There is no doubt that there exists almost everywhere a great- bulk 

 of opinion in favour of the retention of the sovereign. This is owing to 

 its being known all over the world as containing an invariable weight of 

 pure gold. The banks prefer it as something they can rely upon — an 

 absolute standard. Sometimes bars consisting of perfectly pure gold are 

 used for effecting exchanges between England and the United States, but 

 sovereigns are frequently preferred to gold bars because they require no 

 further melting and assay, arfe accepted at a fixed price, and constitute 

 the most convenient form in which to export gold. Very large quanti- 

 ties are shipped from Sydney to San Francisco, and there .are taken to 

 the mint immediately on arrival to be remelted and recoined as required 

 by law. Mr. Von Arnheim, Deputy Master of the Sydney Branch of thp- 

 Eoyal Mint, states that " in one year we lost nearly 7,000,000 good sove- 

 " reigns in that way; we lost the labour of melting them." Quite 

 frequently large parcels of new sovereigns arriving in London have been 

 sold to bullionists at a premium to be remelted and reshipped to the 

 continent in the form of bars. In fact, the Eoyal Mint undertakes to 

 perform gratis the inspection and assaying of the gold required not only 

 in the Empire, but for all the rest of the world. All this shews that the 

 sovereign is- simply valued as containing a certain amount of gold, and 

 that if new coins were issued by the Royal Mint of the same fineness in 

 pure gold as the sovereign, they would be valued according to their in- 

 creased weight and rapidly acquire as good a reputation. If the new 

 guinea pieces were coined as above proposed the various British coins 

 would have the following number of half-pence or cents : — 



GOLD PIECES No. of 



cents. 

 Two Guinea piece =: One "Empress" or "Edward" — 1000. 



Guinea 500. 



Half a Guinea 250. 



