180 WEAR OF COIN. 



CHAP. XXIII. 



by all experiments, that the smaller the pieces 

 are, the greater loss do they suffer by abrasion. 



The gold coin of the ancients certainly ap- 

 proached nearer to the weight of the half-guineas 

 than to that of the guineas. The auretis and the 

 bezant were but little heavier than the former, and 

 some of their coins were very much less ; and 

 thus the loss from abrasion must have been much 

 greater than on the average of our coin. 



It is true that a small portion of the existing 

 gold among the ancients was actually in coin or 

 in that kind of circulation which would cause it 

 to wear excessively; but, on the other hand, if 

 the effect of the alloys they used was, as is shown 

 by the experiments of Messrs. Cavendish and Hat- 

 chet, to increase the wear in a fourfold degree, 

 instead of the annual loss being one part in nine 

 hundred and fifty, it would have been at the rate 

 of one part in two hundred and thirty-seven. 



Making due allowance, then, for the inferiority 

 of the metal, for the size of the pieces, and for the 

 inferiority of the fabrication on the one hand, and 

 on the other, for the less degree of circulation, it 

 may be assumed that a medium rate of loss was 

 most proper, and that taking it at one part in six 

 hundred would be as near an approximation to 

 the loss of gold by abrasion as is likely to be ob- 

 tained. It is upon that scale that the general rate 

 of the consumption of the precious metals up to 



