The Production anal Waste of Money. 269 



cepted), afforded good results ; and in many cases he obtained 

 imitations of appearances observed in such minerals as 

 arragonite, gyp sum, etc. 



Experiments of this kind present no difficulty either of 

 manipulation or expense, and it is very instructive to compare 

 normal crystals with those obtained when any viscid material, 

 or special arrangement of temperature, interferes with the 

 patterns which the crystalline force makes when its opera- 

 tions are unimpeded. 



THE PKODUCTION AND WASTE OF MONEY. 



BY JOSEPH NEWTON. 



In a great commercial community, like that of England, there 

 cannot fail to exist a considerable amount of interest in every- 

 thing which has reference to the currency in use. Not only is 

 this so in a moral and social sense, but also in a material one. 

 The quantity, purity, and durability of gold and silver coinages 

 are questions of much importance, and which have accordingly 

 engaged the attention of monarchs and legislators from the 

 earliest periods. As regards the quantity of money circulating 

 among the people of this country, that has necessarily varied 

 exceedingly at different epochs and even in different reigns. 

 Owing, however, to the enormous increase of traffic which has 

 followed the introduction of the railway system, the steady 

 development of manufacturing industry, resulting from the 

 employment of steam-power, and the yearly augmentation of 

 the population of the British Isles, there was never at any 

 former period so large an amount of metallic money required, 

 or in existence as at present. 



It is a remarkable fact that scarcely any serious alterations 

 have been made in the purity of English coins of gold or silver 

 for many centuries. 



When Henry III. introduced gold coin into our mints, the 

 metal of which they were composed was that known as twenty- 

 four carat, or pure gold, without a particle of alloy. So it 

 remained until Edward III. ordered a reduction of the standard 

 to twenty-three carat three and a half grains fine gold, and 

 half a grain of alloy. It remained for Henry VIII. to take 

 further liberties with the gold coinage, and this he did un- 

 sparingly. He debased it to twenty carats, with the exception 

 of a certain small coinage of crowns of goldj which were com- 



