JANUARY 26, 1912] 
2. The monopolies of the Guilds and of 
the tax farmers. 
3. The ease with which wine and corn— 
the chief products of France at that time 
—mieht be exported, thus increasing the 
price at home. 
4. The extravagance of the Court. 
5. The general leisure in the community. 
6. The debasement of money, a practise 
which was prevalent in France at that 
time. 
Mr. Jacob, in his excellent work on 
““Precious Metals,’’ ascribes the increase in 
prices, of which complaint was made in the 
dialogue referred to, to the increased pro- 
duction of the precious metals and traces 
with great research the coincidence be- 
tween their increased supply and the high 
prices of that time. A similar object les- 
son in the history of prices is derived from 
a comparatively recent period. In the 
years from 1789 to 1809, the average price 
of commodities rose from an index figure 
of 85 to 157, or more than 80 per cent. 
There were many contributing causes, such 
as the prevalence of war and the interfer- 
ence with international trade caused by the 
French Revolution and the Napoleonic 
wars. Mr. Tooke lays stress upon the poor 
harvests of that period, but Professor 
Jevons ascribes the increase to the larger 
production of gold and of silver and points 
out that metals and oils were more affected 
than grain. Beginning in 1809, for a 
period of 40 years, prices fell from an 
index number, as measured by Professor 
Jevons, of 157 to 64 or nearly 60 per cent. 
This decrease has been very generally as- 
eribed to the falling off in the production 
of precious metals which did not revive 
until the gold discoveries in California and 
Australia. There was a temporary rise 
after 1839, apparently due to the inflow of 
Russian gold following its discovery in 
Siberia in 1830. The great activity prior 
SCIENCE 
135 
to 1837 was also a contributing cause. It 
should be carefully borne in mind that this 
period from 1809 to 1849 was a time of 
great industrial advancement in which 
many inventions and improvements were 
utilized. In the period from 1849 to 1873, 
prices rose from 64 to 86, or about 33 per 
cent. The rise was interrupted by the 
erises of 1857 and 1866 and greatly accel- 
erated by the exceptional activity prior to 
1873 and was presumably due to the gold 
inflation following the development in 1849 
in California and several years later in 
Australia. In the period from 1873 to 
1896 prices fell in gold countries and this 
is ascribed to the decrease in the produc- 
tion of gold, to the adoption of the gold 
standard in the more advanced nations, 
thereby discontinuing the general use of 
one of the precious metals, at least as far 
as free coinage was concerned. 
Manifestly there were other causes for 
the decrease in prices at this time. The 
great increase in facilities for transporta- 
tion, culminating with the opening of the 
Suez Canal in 1869, brought different por- 
tions of the earth nearer to each other and 
made it possible to utilize the abundance 
afforded by outlying districts for the bene- 
fit of the more settled areas where food 
products were becoming less abundant. 
Again there were most notable increases in 
the mechanical arts. So considerable was 
this decrease in prices that several writers, 
of whom perhaps Mr. David A. Wells is 
the best example, came to the conclusion 
that the period of the most buoyant activ- 
ity had come to an end; that thereafter the 
people would occupy themselves with re- 
pair and replacement or in utilizing dis- 
coveries already made. In other words, 
the most profitable production had reached 
a limit. 
A very valuable contribution to the sub- 
ject of prices is furnished by a comparison 
