220 ADDRESS TO THE [LETT. 



3 175. lOjd., which is generally termed the mint 

 price of gold. 



We sometimes hear surprise expressed that there 

 should be a fixed price for gold. Gold, it is said, should 

 be allowed to follow its market price. But when we are 

 told that the mint price of gold is always 3 17s. 10 $d. 

 an ounce, all that is meant is that an ounce of gold is 

 coined into 3 17s. lOjc/. The price of gold is fixed 

 in gold, or, in other words, sovereigns are always of the 

 same weight. Sir Robert Peel asked his opponents the 

 well-known question, " What is 1 ? " and the simple 

 answer is, that 1 is a certain quantity of gold verified 

 by the stamp of the mint. 



There appears to be much uncertainty as to when, or 

 by whom, coins were first struck in Ireland and Scotland. 

 As regards the former country, they are never men- 

 tioned in the Senchus Mor, which is said to have been 

 compiled about A.D. 440, and in which when the 

 precious metals are alluded to, which is but rarely, 

 this is always by weight. Such is indeed the case even 

 to a much later date. Thus in 1004, Brian Boroimhe 

 offered twenty ounces of gold on the altar of St. Patrick 

 at Armagh, though coins are said to have been in use 

 as early as the ninth century. The earliest Scotch 

 coins are supposed to belong to the time of Malcolm 

 the Third, about 1050 A.D. 



The derivations of the words relating to money and 

 commerce are interesting and instructive. " Pecuniary " 

 takes us back to the times when value was reckoned by 

 so many head of cattle. The word " money " is from 

 moneta, because in Rome coins were first regularly 

 struck in the temple of Juno Moneta, which again was 



