Of the social and political consequences of these discoveries, the most striking and attractive are those which are likely to be manifested in the immediate neighbourhood—using the word in a large sense—of the countries in which the new gold mines have been met with. The peopling of California and Australia—the development of the boundless traffic which Western America and the islands of the Australasian, Indian, and Chinese seas are fitted to support—the annexation of the Sandwich Islands(!)—the establishment of new and independent dominions on the great islands to the south and west—the throng of great ships and vessels of war we can in anticipation see dotting and over-awing the broad Pacific—the influence, political and social, of these new nations on the old dominions and civilisation of the fabled East, and of still mysterious China and hidden Japan;—we may almost speak of this _forward_ vision, as Playfair has written of the effect upon his mind of Hutton’s expositions of the _past_—“The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far back into the abyss of time; and while we listened with earnestness and admiration to the philosopher, who was now unfolding to us the order and series of these wonderful events, we became sensible _how much further reason may sometimes go than imagination can venture to follow_.” But its influence, though less dazzling, will be as deep and perceptible upon the social relations of the older monarchies of Europe. Our own richly commercial and famed agricultural country, and its dependencies, will be especially affected. Prices will nominally rise—commerce and general industry will be stimulated—and a gilding of apparent prosperity will overspread class interests, which would otherwise languish and decline. How far this is likely to be favourable to the country, on the whole—to interfere with, disguise, or modify the effect of party measures—we have recently discussed in previous articles, and shall for the present pass by. Perhaps that portion of its influence which, in this country of great money fortunes, and in some of the Continental states, is attracting most attention, is the change likely to be produced by it in the bullion market, especially in the relative values of gold and silver, and even (should this not materially alter, in consequence of an enlarged produce from the silver mines) in the real value of annuities, stock, and bonds of every description. It has occasionally happened in ancient times, that by a sudden large influx of gold the comparative value of that metal has been lowered in an extraordinary degree. Thus Strabo, in his _Geography_, (book iv. chap. vi. sect. 9,) has the following passage:—