306 



FINANCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



In the past two years, when the demand for foreign coin imported. The whole amount 



bars to export had ceased, nearly the whole of nearly, was sent to Philadelphia for coinage^ 



the deposits were ordered payable in coin, and and the operations of the mint were as fol- 



nearly forty millions of those deposits were lows: 



The operations of the California mint show 

 similar results. 



The following table exhibits in detail the 

 operations of the mint during the year 1861 : 



GOLD DEPOSITED AND COINED. 



The California and Philadelphia mints were 

 in the past year nearly the chief sources of 

 supply of coin, since the Southern mints early 

 in the year passed into the hands of the Con- 

 federates. The two mints, it appears, supplied 

 the following quantities of American coin : 



the amount of specie shipped from England to 

 the East by the steamers of the Peninsular and 

 Oriental Company during the last eleven years. 

 The aggregate in that period is nearly ninety 

 millions sterling, of which scarcely even the 

 smallest portion has ever returned : 



This immense supply of coin has been poured 

 into the markets in a year of war panic, and 

 has probably been hoarded to a very consider- 

 able extent, since the banks held but very little 

 more at the close of 1861 than at its commence- 

 ment In fact, during the eleven years in which 

 California and Australia have poured their 

 supplies upon the markets of the world, the 

 specie currency of Europe has scarcely been in- 

 creased. 



The London circular of Mr. James Low states 



This is an amount very nearly equal to the 

 whole California product in that period. The 

 only effect, therefore, has been to substitute 

 gold for silver, and without increasing the ag- 

 gregate metallic currency of Europe. 



