144 HEREDITY. 



difference of their value and that of gold coins is 

 eight or ten per cent, as it would be in the present 

 case. There will, therefore, exist, in the country 

 over-valuing silver, a surplus of silver over other 

 coins. Thus depreciation will occur there in part, 

 and appreciation will occur in the exporting country, 

 and so a level will be produced. 



Massachusetts Bay cannot agree with Liverpool 

 harbor how high the tides shall rise. No admiral has 

 power over the tides. It would not be possible for 

 London, Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, New York, and 

 Washington together to fix a firm standard of the 

 relative value of gold and silver. The great tides in 

 commerce depend on quite other forces than national 

 legislation. We cannot prevent water or money from 

 running down hill. There will be a level reached 

 in the commercial atmosphere. Guyot says that the 

 great art of constructing weather-maps is to notice 

 how the air flows down a slope. At the same instant 

 of actual time the height of the barometer is deter- 

 mined all across this continent. Thus it is known 

 where the hills and valleys are in the atmospheric 

 landscape, so to speak. Where the barometer is 

 high, the air is heavy i the opposite condition exists 

 where the barometer is low ; and so a certain slope 

 may be discovered in the atmosphere. Down that 

 slope the wind will run. There will be a level pro- 

 duced, and so the course of storms can be predicted. 

 Now, just that law prevails in the commercial atmos- 

 phere ; this thing of mystery and storms and the 

 lightnings of panics is all as explicable as our weath- 



