silver will again become a full value coinage metal over the whole earth, but what are to be the trials through which Europe is to reach that point." At this point it seems to me well to present the figures of relative production for the last century in a more compact shape, with a view to bringing out the contrast: Silver produced 1792-1850............ $1,690,217,000 Gold produced........................ 848,186,000 Excess of silver production.......... 842,031,000 Gold produced 1850-73................ $2,724,825,000 Silver produced...................... 1,150,025,000 Excess of gold....................... 1,574,800,000 Gold produced 1873-92, inclusive..... $2,060,897,000 Silver produced...................... 2,264,419,000 Excess of silver..................... 203,522,000 Gold produced 1850-92, inclusive..... $4,785,722,000 Silver produced...................... 3,414,444,000 Excess of gold....................... 1,371,278,000 Gold produced 1792-1892, inclusive... $5,633,908,000 Silver produced...................... 5,104,961,000 Excess of gold....................... 528,947,000 Thus are we confronted with the truly startling paradox that during all the century and a half when the production of silver was nearly twice that of gold, and the two centuries back of that when it was more than twice, the variation in coinage value never rose to 9 per cent., and for many years at a time corresponded with the ratio set by the mint; but at the end of a century during which the gold production was half a billion greater than that of silver, and at the end of half a century when it was nearly a billion and a half greater, the really scarcer metal has declined in terms of the other nearly one-half! And all this, the monometallist tells us, because there has been an excess of silver produced amounting to less than a quarter of a billion in twenty-three years. Belief in such a proposition would indeed be a triumph of faith over figures. And to add to the trial of our faith, we find, on bringing the figures down to the close of the year 1895--and we cannot bring them later on account of official slowness--the amounts of silver and gold in the world, as presented in values at our ratio, are almost exactly equal, the greatest divergence claimed by the most extreme monometallist being 16-3/10 ounces of silver to one of gold!