Decembee 6, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



893 



Dewbowski are immensely more valuable now 

 than when they were made many years ago, by 

 reason of changes in the sidereal heavens which 

 have since intervened ; and all precise work 

 such as that now being done at the Flower Ob- 

 servatory is assured of a lasting and honorable 

 place in the history of science. Scientific re- 

 search prosecuted for its own sake is among the 

 most noble of intellectual pursuits, and the 

 University of Pennsylvania is much to be con- 

 gratulated on the distinguished place it is ac- 

 quiring in the astronomical world. 



T. J. J. See. 

 Washington, D. C. 



A History of the Precious Metals from the Earliest 

 Times to the Present Day. By Alex. Del 

 Mar. Second edition, revised. New York, 

 Cambridge Encyclopedia Co. 1902. 8vo. 

 Illustrated. Pp. xxii + 480, 1-9. 

 The first edition of this remarkable work 

 was published at London in 1880 and has long 

 since been exhausted ; meanwhile the author, in 

 his profession of mining engineer, has visited 

 many remote sources of the precious metals 

 and has secured at first hand new material 

 which has caused the volume to be entirely re- 

 written. This history is prepared by a profound 

 student, from the point of view of the anti- 

 quarian, the archeologist and of the metallur- 

 gist, as well as the political economist, and 

 deals with the exploration of the entire surface 

 of the globe for gold and silver from the earliest 

 record of mankind to the present day ; copper, 

 tin and the other heavy metals are only inci- 

 dentally treated. The author is particularly 

 well qualified for this vast undertaking, having 

 already published several serious studies on 

 money, its history, its science and its bearing 

 on the progress of civilization, and having held 

 positions of authority under the United States 

 government, Director of the United States Bu- 

 reau of Statistics, Mining Commissioner, and 

 member of the International Congresses which 

 met at Turin and at St. Petersburg. He 

 is now engaged on ' The Romance of the Pre- 

 cious Metals' and 'The Politics of Money,' 

 both of which are well advanced. 



Mr. Del Mar maintains that the principal mo- 

 tive which has led to the dominion of the earth 



by civilized races is the desire for the precious 

 metals, rather than geographical research or 

 military conquest ; that the occurrence of gold 

 has invited commerce, and the latter has been 

 followed by invasion and eventually permanent 

 occupation. With these facts in mind he por- 

 trays the stupendous power exerted by the 

 quest for the precious metals from the be- 

 ginnings of history in India, Persia, Egypt, 

 Greece, Italy, Spain and the Western Hemi- 

 sphere. He depicts very vividly the painful 

 ways in which each gold-producing country has 

 been mercilessly plundered by more powerful 

 neighbors, saying that ' mining is slow work 

 compared with plundering.' He also shows 

 elsewhere that mining is generally more ex- 

 pensive than plundering, except where forced 

 labor and slavery is employed. And to illus- 

 trate the latter point he claims that ' since the 

 discovery of America the European world has 

 acquired 19,500 and odd millions of dollars, of 

 which 1,000 millions were obtained by con- 

 quest, 9,500 millions by slavery and 9,000 mil- 

 lions chiefly by free mining labor.' 



Recognizing these sources of the precious 

 metals he is decidedly opposed to the dictum 

 of certain philosophers that the value of gold is 

 its ' cost of production,' and says this formula 

 does not take into account the ' millions of 

 human lives, the rivers of human tears, the 

 oceans of human blood, the immeasurable 

 amount of human anguish.' 



This aspect of the case is set forth in power- 

 fully written chapters on the plunder of 

 America (by the Spaniards), of Africa (from the 

 Roman Emperors to South African War), of 

 Asia (by the Romans, Portuguese and the 

 British), and of China in all ages ; chapters 

 showing great historical research and learning. 

 The author's arraignment of Spain is particu- 

 larly interesting at this epoch: "Besides 

 despoiling aboriginal America of her gold and 

 silver, Spain accomplished nothing in the New 

 World except extermination and destruction. 

 She swept away half as many human lives as 

 all Europe contained at the period of the dis- 

 covery of America. She destroyed every 

 memorial of the Aztec and Peruvian civiliza- 

 tions. She disfigured the entire face of Central 

 and South America. And she planted nothing 



