There are two ways of looking at a sovereign: one is that a sovereign _is_ a sovereign, a coin of the realm, which everybody is pleased to possess; the other is as a piece of the precious metal which, by our English law, contains 7·988 grammes of standard gold—standard gold, by our law, consisting of eleven parts pure gold and one part alloy. A franc, or rather a twenty-franc piece, can be looked at in the same two ways. According to French law, a kilo of gold, containing nine parts pure gold and one part alloy, is coined into 155 twenty-franc pieces. From these two sets of figures, by a simple calculation, we find that the pure gold in one sovereign is equal to the pure gold contained in 25·2215 francs; that is, that as regards intrinsic worth, one sovereign is equal to 25·2215 francs, and this exchange of 25·2215 (usually regarded as 25·22) is what is known as the “Mint Par” between England and France. A Mint Par represents the fixed intrinsic value of the currency unit of one country, expressed in terms of another country, which uses the same metal as a standard of value. Thus when A sends gold to Paris to liquidate the debt, he must, on this basis, send sovereigns containing in the aggregate just the quantity of pure gold contained in 25,000 francs. This at the Mint Par of 25·22 is about £991 5_s._ 6_d._ But A must also pay for carriage and insurance of the parcel of coins, and these charges, we may assume, will amount together to 10 centimes per £, which, on the remittance in question, would amount to £3 18_s._ 7_d._ The total cost will therefore be £995 4_s._ 1_d._, which represents an exchange at the rate of about 25·12½. Therefore if A liquidates his debt to B by sending gold, for each sovereign expended he only obtains the right to 25·12½ francs in Paris. This rate is called the “Export Specie Point,” or “Export Gold Point,” between England and France, and when the Paris exchange falls to this figure, we may expect gold to leave us for Paris, as gold is then as cheap a mode of remittance as bills. Let us now reverse the position and assume that B in Paris owes A in London £1,000, and that he decides to send gold to pay his debt. What rate of exchange will result from this transaction?