NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



467 



gross weight. Here also the whole business of refining, assaying, mark- 

 ing, and issuing the Bar with its proper certificate, is carried on with 

 the greatest formality and precision. The smelting is more imperfectly 

 executed perhaps, yet done with greater dispatch, than I have found it 

 in the first Refinery in London. Formerly it was usual to estimate the 

 quantity sent in monthly, to be refined, by quintals, and the Royal Fifth 

 by arrobas, but now only by marks. According to general opinion, the 

 quantity of Gold extracted from the earth is much smaller than it for- 

 merly was ; as a friend to the country I hope it may be so, and that the 

 inhabitants find a more profitable employment in cultivating the soil, 

 than in grubbing for metal among its pebbles. The facilities for smug- 

 gling, however, it ought to be remarked, are greatly increased, and 

 where heavy and impolitic taxes are levied, they will certainly be evaded. 

 This the Government cannot discern, or will not amend, and probably 

 must be schooled many years longer ere it will learn the most common 

 principles of political arithmetic. 



Here accounts relating to Gold are kept in marks, ounces, oitaves, 

 and vintems, twelve vintems being equal to one oitave, or eighth part 

 of an ounce, and eight ounces to one mark. The integral weight or 

 ounce, of the metal, when pure, or twenty-four carats fine, and when the 

 Royal Claim or Fifth has been satisfied, is estimated at 13,090[-j Reis, 

 which at an Exchange of sixty-pence per milreis, gives three pounds five 

 shillings and five-pence half-penny, nearly as the Sterling value of pure 

 Gold, when issued from the Smelting-house ; or for British Standard Gold, 

 which is only twenty-two carats fine, less than three Pounds Sterling 

 per ounce. The relative value of every quality of gold may be easily 

 found by multiplying the number of carats by 75, or otherwise, at one 

 operation, by using as a multiplier the number 130.9166. which gives 

 the product in British farthings. Hence it is evident, that the intrinsic 

 value of gold, when taken from the earth, and without any duty 

 being paid upon it, is something less than forty-eight shillings per 

 ounce for British Standard, or that quality which is twenty-two 

 carats fine. 



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