THE SCIENCE OF MONEY. BY ALEXANDER DEL MAR, C.E., M.E., Formerly Director of the Bureau of Statistics of the United Commission of 1876; Author of a Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1885 by PREFACE. N the author's "History of the Precious Metals" it was IN shown from personal observations and practical tests made in the principal mining districts of California, Australia, Nevada, and other countries, where mining for these metals had been conducted by free labourers and under economical conditions, that the present value of these metals was far less than the average cost of their production; and that mining for them was kept up, not because of any proofs that it was remunerative, but in consequence of the gambling character of the pursuit and the hope entertained by each adventurer that his mine would prove a fortunate exception to the rest. Upon looking for the circumstances which had originally determined the present value of the precious metals, such circumstances were found in the military conquests, the rapine, and the slavery by which, previous to 1849, the European world had usually obtained them-chiefly by the Spanish conquest of America, the cruel consignment of its aboriginal inhabitants to the mines of Mexico and Peru, and the capture of Spanish plate ships by British, Dutch, and French privateers. These circumstances were regarded 1 The precious metals became so plentiful in Europe that the dukes of Alva and Medini Cœli were enabled to possess from twelve to four |