INCREASED USE OF CHAP. XXIV. 



gold and silver to other purposes than that of 

 coin are necessarily of a general nature. The 

 subject does not admit of any estimation ap- 

 proaching to statistical accuracy, and whatever 

 inferences may be drawn must depend rather on 

 inquiries made at a subsequent period, than on 

 any information that can be derived from the 

 period to which they relate. Whoever has had 

 occasion to inquire among refiners, gold-beaters, 

 jewellers, or goldsmiths concerning the extent of 

 their operations thirty or forty years ago, to say 

 nothing of more remote dates, will have found 

 the answers he obtains doubtful and contradictory, 

 though the same persons can give accounts of its 

 present state, which may inspire sufficient con- 

 fidence in their accuracy to be made the basis of 

 such estimation as may be relied upon. 



It is for that reason, that though we find it 

 necessary from the plan pursued to estimate in 

 the present chapter the proportion of gold and 

 silver applied to other purposes than coin in 

 Europe between 1700 and 1810, yet we defer 

 to a future part of the work the chief of the 

 specific grounds by which that estimate .must be 

 be sustained. In the mean time the reader is re- 

 'ferred to Appendix, No. 5, where sufficient proof 

 is exhibited of the increased use of gold and 

 silver for purposes of personal ornaments, and for 

 decorations and utensils. It is not without much 

 consideration of all the circumstances which ac- 



