270 The Production and Waste of Money. 



posed of twenty-two carat metal, that is twenty-two parts of 

 gold to two of alloy, and which mixture thenceforth took the 

 name of crown gold. In the reign of Charles II. this latter 

 rate of purity was made what it has continued to be up to 

 this hour — the sole standard of all the gold coins of the realm. 

 It will thus he seen that in spite of the nefarious proceedings 

 of Henry VIII. in regard to the gold coinage during the last 

 twenty years of his reign, the mutations of purity it has under- 

 gone are inconsiderable ; and coming to the silver coinage, it 

 is a striking circumstance that for nearly seven hundred years 

 ■ — again excepting some tamperings of the monarch just 

 named — its standard of purity has remained unaltered. For 

 example, the silver coins of Henry II. were composed of a 

 mixture consisting of eleven ounces and two pennyweights of 

 fine silver, and eighteen pennyweights of alloy. Those of her 

 Majesty, Queen Victoria, are of precisely the same degree of 

 fineness, and it is not at all probable that for centuries to come, 

 the standards of either our gold or our silver coins will be 

 interfered with. In both cases we have obtained compositions 

 — the alloy used being the purest copper — which give hardness 

 and beauty of appearance to the individual pieces of money 

 resulting from them — and these are desiderata, the importance 

 of which is sufficiently obvious. Of the subordinate and 

 inferior currency it maybe said that from the year 1672 (temp. 

 Charles II.)* to the year 1860, when the present bronze coin- 

 age was inaugurated, it has been composed of copper. There 

 is no doubt about the superiority of bronze over copper for the 

 purpose of conversion into coin, although the mechanical 

 difficulties attending the operation are certainly much greater. 

 The addition of four per cent, of tin and one per cent, of zinc 

 has the effect of hardening the remaining ninety-five per cent, 

 of copper to an extent which is incredible to any but those 

 who have witnessed the labour of rolling and stamping the 

 compound, and which illustrates the fact that the ancients 

 used bronze for cutting implements before steel had become 

 known. 



Thus much for the materials of which the British coinage 

 is composed. Let us now turn to a consideration of the quan- 

 tity of each denomination of coin actually circulating in Great 

 Britain, and the rate at which it deteriorates, or wastes by 

 abrasion and friction. It will be well to commence our in- 

 quiries with the year 1816, because, during that and the year 

 following, the whole of the silver monies of the realm woe 

 recoined, and because all the gold coins, save those preserved 



* A small coinage of tin by way of experiment was struck in 1684 by the same 

 monarch. Ibis was deemed a failure, as were those of pewter and gun-metal 

 struck by James II. and abandoned. 



