FINANCE, INDUSTRY, TRANSPORTATION. 



447 



called Stirling. The second opinion derives 

 it from the figure of a bird called starling, 

 which appears about the cross in the ancient 

 arms of England. The third most probably 

 assigns its true origin, by deducing it from 

 Esterling ; for in the time of Henry III. , it is 

 called Moneta Esterlingorum, the money of 

 the Esterlings or people of the East, who came 

 hither to refine the silver of which it was made, 

 and hence it was valued more than any other 

 coin, on account of the purity of its substance. 

 The denomination of the weights and their 

 parts is of the Saxon or Esterling tongue, as 

 pound, shilling, penny, and farthing, which 

 .are so called in their language to the present 

 day. The term sterling is now disused in Eng- 

 land in all ordinary transactions, but is still 

 used in Scotland to distinguish sums from the 

 ancient money of the country, as referred to 

 in old deeds and notices of pecuniary transac- 

 tions. The old Scots' money, previous to the 

 Union of 1707, was in pounds, shillings, and 

 pence, but these were only a twelfth of the 

 value of sterling money of the same denomina- 

 tion ; thus a pound Scots was only twenty 

 pence sterling. The word sterling is also in 

 use in the colonies, to distinguish the legal 

 standard of Great Britain from the currency 

 money in these places. 



It is customary to estimate the purity of 

 gold by an imaginary standard of 24 carats. 

 If in a piece of gold weighing 24 carats there 

 be l-24th of alloy, then the piece is one be- 

 low the standard. What is called jewelers' 

 gold is seldom purer than 20 fine to 4 of alloy 

 the alloy being usually silver, but some- 

 times copper, which gives a deeper red tinge 

 to the metal. Perfectly pure gold is never 

 seen either in trinkets or coins, for it is too 

 ductile, and for that and other reasons requires 

 a certain quantity of -alloy. Sovereigns, and 

 other modern English gold coins, contain one 

 twelfth of alloy, but this twelfth is not reck- 

 oned as gold in point of value. At present 

 the gold coin of Great Britain is issued at very 

 nearly its precise market value as bullion. A 

 pound weight of gold of 22 carats fineness 

 produces coins to the amount of 46 pounds, 14 

 shillings, and 6 pence, which is about the price 

 at which bullion sells for in the market. Thus 

 the gold of that country is coined free of ex- 

 pense. In coining silver, the government is 

 allowed by the Act of 56, George III., a profit 

 or seigniorage of about 6 per cent. ; the pound 

 weight of silver, which should produce 62 

 shillings, being coined into 66 shillings. The 

 silver coins being therefore of a little less real 

 value than the sums they represent, they are 

 not liable to be melted down by silversmiths 

 for the manufacture of articles in their trade. 



AMERICAN COINAGE, EARLY. 



The earliest coinage that can be called Amer- 

 ican, in the sense of Anglo-American, was 

 ordered by the original Virginia Company only 

 five years after the founding of Jamestown. 

 The coin was minted at Somers Island, now 

 known as the Bermudas. For a long while 

 the standard currency of Virginia was tobacco, 

 as in many of the early settlements of the 

 Northwest it was beaver skins, and other pelts 

 reckoned as worth such a fraction of a beaver 

 skin or so many beaver skins. In 1645 the 

 Assembly of the Virginia Colony, after a pre- 

 amble reciting that " It had maturely weighed 

 and considered how advantageous a quoine 

 would be to this colony, and the great wants 

 | and miseries which do daily happen unto it by 

 the sole dependency upon tobacco," provided 

 for the issue of copper coins of the denomina- 

 tion of twopence, threepence, sixpence, and 

 ninepence ; but this law was never carried 

 into effect, so that the first colonial coinage of 

 America was that struck off by Massachusetts 

 under the order of the General Court of that 

 colony, passed May 27, 1652, creating a " mint 

 house " at Boston, and providing for the mint- 

 age of " twelvepence, sixpence, and threepence 

 pieces, which shall be for forme flatt, and 

 stamped on the one side with N. E., and on 

 the other side with xiid., vid., and iiid., ac- 

 cording to the value of each pence." In 1662 

 from this same mint appeared the famous 

 "pine tree shillings," which were twopenny 

 pieces, having a pine tree on one side. This 

 mint was maintained for thirty-four years. In 

 the reign of William and Mary copper coins 

 were struck in England for New England and 

 Carolina. Lord Baltimore had silver shillings, 

 sixpences, and fourpences made in England to 

 supply the demand of his province in Mary- 

 land. Vermont and Connecticut established 

 mints in 1785 for the issue of copper coin. 

 New Jersey followed a year later. But Con- 

 gress had the establishment of 'i mint for the 

 confederated States under advisement, and in 

 this same year agreed upon a plan submitted by 

 Thomas Jefferson, and the act went into opera- 

 tion on a small scale in 1787. After the adop- 

 tion of the Constitution of the United States in 

 1789 all the state mints were closed, as the 

 Constitution specifically places the sole power 

 of coining money in the Federal Government. 



The gold pieces are : 



1. The double eagle, or <$20 piece. Coin- 

 age of the double eagle was authorized by the 

 Act of March 3, 1849. Its weight is 516 

 grains. Its fineness is 900. (This technical 

 form of expression means that 900 parts in 

 1,000 are pure metal, the other 100 parts are 

 alloy.) The amount of coinage of the double 



