186 WEAR OF COIN. 



CHAP. XXIII. 



or on that of the modern continental kingdoms, 

 whose silver money was of far inferior fineness. 

 For on silver as on gold coins the rate of loss will 

 increase in the same proportion as the fineness of 

 the silver in the pieces is diminished : and the 

 rate will be farther increased as the size and weight 

 of the pieces, as is the case with the continental 

 coin, is less. 



It may now be proper to advert to the grounds 

 on which the rate of loss by friction on the money 

 of ancient times has been assumed to be one part 

 in three hundred and sixty annually. In remote 

 antiquity gold coins were unknown till long after 

 silver coins had been fabricated, and, descending 

 lower, when such coins had been introduced, the 

 amount of the silver very far exceeded that of the 

 gold money. It is impossible to form an accurate 

 or even an approximate estimate of the relative 

 amount of the two kinds of money. It becomes, 

 therefore, necessary for the purposes of calculation 

 to frame a supposititious relation. We assume then 

 that the proportionate amount of the gold money 

 to the silver money was as one to five, or that five 

 times as much silver as of gold circulated. This 

 rate has not been fixed upon without much consi- 

 deration of the low prices of all commodities which 

 required for their exchange only the lower kind 

 of money ; of the product of the mines through 

 the several ages, and of the relative value of gold 

 to silver in the different periods of history. 



