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Tables of relative values of gold and silver,
Diagram showing the course of relative values from 1840 to
1876,

Table of the relative legal values of gold and silver in

various countries,

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The Latin Monetary Union,

Demonetization of silver in Great Britain in 1816,
Effects in 1872-3 of the British law of 1816,

The exclusive gold standard of values impossible for all

nations,

Exclusive standards of either metal in different countries
inimical to the comity of nations,

Report of the British Parliamentary Commission of 1876 on

the depreciation of silver,

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PRICES OF COMMODITIES IN GOLD.

Cause of the great rise of prices from 1862 to 1867,
Causes of the reaction in 1872-3,

141, 142

151, 152

140, 171

144, 145

145

145

137

138

130, 131

131

134

THE MONEY SYMBOLS.

N the cover of this book are grouped, in one design,

the three emblems from which are derived the dollar symbol, $, and the pound-sterling symbol, £. The most prominent and interesting feature of the group is the two pillars, which were derived from the pillars of Hercules, one of the oldest symbols known to the human race. Their composition with the money symbols is due entirely to the emperor Charles the Fifth of Germany, who being also king of Spain adopted them as supporters on either side of his escutcheon, and also placed them in the device on the Spanish "pillar dollar" of the value of fifty-four pence sterling, which became the unit of Federal money in America, and upon the basis of which the pound sterling was valued at $4.44.44. Charles derived the idea from the poetic conceit which gave the name of "Pillars of Hercules" to the two mountains which stand on either side the Straits of Gibraltar, viz.: Calpe, or the Rock of Gibraltar, on the north, and Mount Abyla, in Africa, on the south. The scroll, which in the device on the dollar was twined about the pillars, has by long use been gradually modified, in making the symbol with the pen, so as to assume its present form in the dollar-mark. It is also presumed that in the pound-mark the L was substituted for the scroll, thus still retaining the two pillars which

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