In the early part of the sixteenth century the London merchants met at regular times at some rendezvous in Lombard Street to transact their business. As their transactions and the number of the merchants represented increased, inconvenience arose, and in 1564 Sir Thomas Gresham offered to erect a suitable building for the merchants’ meeting house if the City would provide the site. This offer was accepted, and the land where the Royal Exchange stands was purchased by a subscription of the citizens—a Mansion House fund. The edifice was duly built, and opened for business in 1571 by Queen Elizabeth. It was unfortunately destroyed by fire in 1666; rebuilt, and again destroyed in 1838. The present building was then erected, dating 1844, and the late Queen Victoria attended in state to open it, as is commemorated in one of the pictures exhibited in the building. The opening of the first building by Queen Elizabeth is the subject of another of these pictures. The merchants in various trades used to assemble in groups, in corners and round the various pillars of the building; but it very soon became too small for this purpose, and as the various groups waxed bigger and wealthier, they gradually deserted the building and erected exchanges of their own, such as the Stock Exchange, Coal Exchange, Hop Exchange, Metal, Wool, Corn, etc., exchanges. At the present day the Exchange is used only by the money merchants and a few dealers in some of the less important industries who occasionally meet there in the afternoon. The money merchants hold their meetings in the Royal Exchange on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which days are called “post days.” This term is a survival of the times when the foreign mails were despatched only twice a week. The principals of the great foreign banking houses and a few brokers are the only persons who attend “’Change.” As a result of the business then effected and the negotiations entered into, certain rates of exchange are arrived at as the ruling rates of the day. After the meeting the brokers publish a list of these rates, which is called the “Course of Exchange.” A specimen “Course of Exchange” is here appended:—