WEAR OF COIN. CHAP. XXIII. 



obvious that the coins issued, with all the im- 

 provements which have been so judiciously and so 

 laboriously introduced, can exhibit no fair scale of 

 the loss of gold by abrasion that can be applicable 

 to all ages and to all countries. It would not 

 form an accurate scale for the loss on the coins of 

 England that were issued in the earlier part of 

 the reign of George the third. It would be less 

 appropriate to determine the loss on all the coins 

 issued from the continental mints, either in the 

 old or the new world. It would least of all be 

 fitted to measure the loss on the coins in the time 

 of high antiquity in Egypt, Babylon, and Per- 

 sepolis, or in the ages which followed, when the 

 Grecian and Roman coins were fabricated, to say 

 nothing of what was transacted in the dark ages. 



It is well known by the . analysis of ancient 

 coins, as well as. by the writings of Pliny 1 , that, in 

 the times of antiquity, alloys in the gold coin 

 were used of various kinds. Silver was too valua- 

 ble to be applied to that purpose, and copper 

 was of much higher value than in modern times. 

 Iron and tin were therefore employed to mix with 

 the gold, as thereby the colour of the metal was 

 scarcely perceptibly changed, and with the im- 



1 As early as the times of Livius Drusus the silver money 

 of Rome was mixed with one eighth part of alloy of brass and 

 tin, as stated by Pliny in the 33d book, chap, iii., and in the 

 9th chapter of the same book he says that Anthony, when 

 he was one of the Triumviri, mixed iron with the silver 

 denier. 



