Nothing appears more likely to restore the confidence of those who have taken alarm at the abundance of gold than the consideration of the almost unlimited extent of its market. What people, civilized or uncivilized, agricultural or manufacturing, do not enter into competition for a supply! What are the millions of francs extracted from the Cordilleras when compared with the capital created by the labour of the inhabitants of the whole globe? The combined washings of the Altai, California, and Australia, during a quarter of a century, would be required to produce a sum equal to the annual revenue of England alone. This unexpected harvest of the precious metals is but an addition to a common fund of wealth; it cannot produce a deep or a durable impression on the almost incalculable mass of wealth already existing in the world. After all, Europe herself does not preserve gold and silver as relics. Money is used by wear and tear to such an extent that it must from time to time be recoined, and the consequent loss falls on the community at large. The use of silver and gold plate, of gold work and jewellery, is increasing every day, as a distinguishing mark of the rise of the middle classes; the manufacturers of France, England, and Switzerland are at work for all the world. English statisticians have estimated the loss, from use, disasters at sea, and export without return of the precious metals, in the United States and Europe, at more than [198]125,000,000 francs a-year. A more moderate estimate reduces this sum to [199]75,000,000 francs. As to articles of luxury, the sums of gold and silver employed therein annually, have been estimated by Mr. Jacob, at [200]148,000,000 francs, without including the consumption of the United States of America. Mr. M’Culloch, who embraces the United States in his calculations, puts the amount at [201]150,000,000. France, herself employing upwards of [202]30,000,000 francs, it may be admitted, without fear of exaggeration, that the sum of [203]125,000,000 of gold is used for domestic purposes. Here, then, we have an annual consumption of [204]200,000,000 francs; the proportion borne by gold in this absorption of the precious metals is every day becoming more important. What remains, at the present time, of the enormous masses of the precious metals which Mexico and Peru have poured forth during the last three centuries? The amount of gold and silver now in the form of circulation would scarcely equal the produce of the mines during the last fifty years. The 30 milliards which America sent to Europe, from the Spanish Conquest to the beginning of the 19th century, has almost entirely disappeared. It would appear as if industry, in its contact with gold and silver, must have volatilized it. France converted into coin a large amount of the precious metals; but when coined, it did not remain there. Exportation appears constantly to produce the effect of banishing it from the country.