The money of the country is all coined in Kabul, the mint, with its up-to-date coining presses, being situated in the workshops, where the presses are at times kept working day and night when large sums of money are required quickly. When the late Amir, who wanted money badly, saw the revenues yearly dwindling, he cast about for means to increase it, and one day the idea of doing so in the following way occurred to him. The Kabul rupee used to be an irregularly shaped coin, hand-stamped, but it was made of pure silver, so the Amir had all these rupees collected and melted down as they accumulated, and as they were melted down a fairly high percentage of copper was added. This alloyed silver was then cast into bars, rolled, and coined afresh in the new mint, which turns out a rupee with a milled edge and pressed with nicely engraved dies. In this way, by melting down the old pure silver rupees and adding copper before re-coining, the Amir made a considerable amount of profit, and when the old rupees of his own country were finished, he collected Persian rupees and added copper to those; but, unfortunately, under one of the Shahs, the same thing had already been done, so that many of the Afghan rupees contain more than double the proportion of copper than is usual in the standard coinage of other countries. Thereafter the Amir ordered the collection of those Persian rupees which were coined under other Shahs, and the exchange offered for these rupees in the Kabul treasury was one Persian for one Kabuli rupee; but to make still further profit, the Amir ordered that one pice less than a Kabuli rupee should be given in exchange for each Persian one, and the Shah, on hearing this, ordered a like reduction in exchange on all Afghan money brought into his country. The result of adding an unusual amount of copper to the rupee, together with other causes, however, depreciated its value in India, where five Kabuli rupees used to be taken in exchange for four Indian, and the exchange nowadays is two Kabuli for one Indian. CHAPTER XV GEOLOGICAL CONDITIONS OF THE COUNTRY Kabul valley once crater of volcano—Earthquakes—Kabul once a large lake—Mines outcropping, gold, lead, copper, coal, etc.—Rivers, and gold in them—Existence of kept secret for fear of trouble—Turkestan mines—The question of fuel for Kabul workshops—Local supply exhausted—Coal under the valley of Kabul.