THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 277 



rapid rhythm of weekly markets begins to supersede the 

 slow rhythm of fairs. And eventually the process of ex- 

 change becomes at certain places so active, as to bring about 

 daily meetings of buyers and sellers — a daily wave of 

 accumulation and distribution of cotton, or corn, or 

 capital. If from exchange we turn to production and 



consumption, we see undulations, much longer indeed in 

 their periods, but almost equally obvious. Supply and de- 

 mand are never completely adapted to each other; but each 

 of them from time to time in excess, leads presently to an 

 excess of the other. Farmers who have one season produced 

 wheat very abundantly, are disgusted with the consequent 

 low price; and next season, sowing a much smaller quan- 

 tity, bring to market a deficient crop; whence follows a 

 converse effect. Consumption undergoes parallel undula- 

 tions that need not be specified. The balancing of supplies 

 between different districts, too, entails analogous oscilla- 

 tions. A place at which some necessary of life is scarce, 

 becomes a place to which currents of it are set up from 

 other places where it is relatively abundant; and these 

 currents from all sides lead to a wave of accumulation where 

 they meet — a glut: whence follows a recoil — a partial re- 

 turn of the currents. But the undulatory character 

 of these actions is perhaps best seen in the rises and falls of 

 prices. These, given in numerical measures which may be 

 tabulated and reduced to diagrams, show us in the clearest 

 manner how commercial movements are compounded of 

 oscillations of various magnitudes. The price of consols or 

 the price of wheat, as thus represented, is seen to undergo 

 vast ascents and descents whose highest and lowest points 

 are reached only in the course of years. These largest waves 

 of variation are broken by others extending over periods of 

 perhaps many months. On these again come others having 

 a week or two's duration. And were the changes marked in 

 greater detail, we should have the smaller undulations that 

 take place each day, and the still smaller ones which brokers 



