standard of silver coin 416 grains, the pure silver rated by itself as before. These facts are of interest as showing the origin of the American dollar recognized as the standard down to 1873. The chapters on "Circulation of the Silver Dollar" and "The Trade Dollar" are interesting and timely, inasmuch as the questions considered are now before Congress, or at least with the committees, and legislation of some kind will be demanded within the next year. There is, even now, a proposition embodied in a bill to suspend coinage of the silver dollar, because it has been found impossible to put the great sum coined directly in circulation. A great part of it has been made the basis of silver certificates, a kind of currency that, by and by, will bring distress to commercial interests if the issues are maintained, or if they are materially increased. Mr. Upton treats all these matters with very clear understanding of every question, and with certain facility of expression that appeals directly to the reader who has only common understanding of money affairs. From beginning to end the book is a rich mine of facts, of historical matter, and of statements that have undergone the scrutiny of the wisest financier during the critical period between the appreciation of values, with the disturbing influences of war, and the return of true values with resumption of specie payment which was effected with gold. While the work must have absorbing interest for that extended school of economists that has made finance a special study in the past dozen years, it will prove very useful to representatives in Congress, who may find here in compact form facts of history with which they should have familiar acquaintance before they attempt legislation intended to correct the errors incorporated in our money system.