It is my belief, not hastily formed, that if this Society should think it wise to enter upon the task of collecting photographic records and should present a carefully considered plan for such work to the various associations of amateur photographers, the response would be prompt, hearty and genuine.

As an illustration of the sort of associated work which is already undertaken by these societies I will read an appeal published since this paper was written :—

"The Boston Camera Club has decided to take the initiative in a scheme for interchanging among the different amateur photographers, illustrated descriptions of their respective cities. The plan is to make negatives and lantern slides of from seventy-five to one hundred leading objects of interest in and about its city; a text will be prepared of ten thousand to twelve thousand words; a print from the negative will be mounted on each page of manuscript, with its description, so that the whole will form an illustrated book (type-written).

The manuscript will be accompanied by a set of lantern slides, one from each negative, so that any club or society desiring to give a public entertainment to its friends, can select some one to read the descriptive text aloud, and the views be shown by the aid of a stereopticon.

For the benefit of any amateurs examining the prints or slides, an invoice will accompany the whole, giving all technical information as to processes employed. Every effort will be made to have each print and slide of high merit."

If this Society desires to set in motion an army of volunteers who are most of them really anxious to find some useful work for their lenses, it has only to plan the work, invite the co-operation of photographers, and presently care for the resulting harvest of contributions. To decide upon a plan of work may prove no easy task; it should be done. thoroughly, by wise heads, after abundant deliberation. A great many points will have to be considered and decided, so that any appeal made by us to the photographic public

may be full and explicit. We must state exactly what objects we desire to have photographed, what points are to be brought out, what sizes and kinds of prints or negatives we prefer, what data should accompany them, etc., etc. It is hardly practicable to prepare our plans in time to have much work done for us during the coming summer, but the work of preparation can be most thoroughly done before the opening of 1889.

If what I have already said has not shown the value, nay, the necessity of promptly establishing a new department of our library, I can only regret that I have not succeeded in fairly presenting the question. It is impossible that the immense worth and use of systematic and comprehensive photographic records of our country and our time can much longer fail to be recognized. It means no change of policy, simply the adoption of a new method in addition to our former ones; it is only to attempt to bring together pictorial records with the same thoroughness that marks our storing of books and manuscripts.

Let me in closing refer to the very recent and very successful attempt of the astronomers to extend and improve their observatory work by making the heavenly bodies imprint their own photographic images. Our success may well be as sudden and as complete as theirs. It is but a year or two since it was demonstrated that even a small telescope fitted to a camera will produce a far better representation of sun, moon, nebula or star group than human hand can draw; and now the whole heavens are being pictured in the most elaborate way by enthusiasts all over the globe, all working upon a system which has been adopted after careful deliberation.

MONETARY UNIFICATION.

BY ROBERT NOXON TOPPAN.

THE prominence given lately to all questions of political economy, especially to the subject of metallic currency by the official international conferences of 1867, 1878 and 1881, leads one to examine the monetary history of the past. Without taking a retrospective view it would be hardly possible to realize the various changes that have taken place, many of which have been very gradual, so gradual as scarcely to arrest the attention of contemporaries.

In my brief essay I wish to point out principally the important fact that the money systems of the chief commercial nations are tending steadily towards unification. The development is in many respects like that of the Roman money system, the points of resemblance being distinctly seen by a comparison of the monetary facts of ancient and modern times.

The Roman system was originally based on copper, all the coins being of that metal and consequently all contracts estimated according to its value. When silver became sufficiently abundant from conquest and commerce to enable the Romans to substitute it for copper, the standard was changed and copper fell to a subordinate position, which it has since retained in Europe with a few temporary exceptions in modern times. When the gold of the East found its way to Rome very much as silver had found its way, by conquest chiefly, the silver standard gradually yielded to one of gold and the silver coins became subsidiary. By the time of Vespasian gold had become practically the measure of value, although accounts were still

reckoned for some time in denarii and sestertii. The development was a natural one, the superior metal becoming naturally the measure of value.

François Lenormant in his interesting and able book, called "Money in Antiquity," sums up the changes in Rome as follows: "Among the Romans and other peoples of central Italy up to the consulship of A. Ogulnius and C. Fabius (485 of Rome, 269 before J. C.) the standard was of copper; from that date until the end of the Republic the standard of silver was adopted, and finally under the empire the gold standard." He adds, "It can be laid down as a principle that the ancients knew nothing about the impracticable pretensions of what is called at the present time bimetallic money or a double standard. On the contrary we find that they always adopted one metal as the fundamental standard and regulator of the whole monetary system. The metal selected varied, as must necessarily happen, according to the particular circumstances of the countries and epochs."

The changes of standard in some of the countries of Europe in modern times have been similar to those of antiquity. Sweden, for instance, was obliged to resort to a copper currency after her disastrous wars, which had deprived her of most of her silver and gold. Silver was, however, soon restored as the measure of value, and now gold has become the sole standard of the country. In Russia copper remained the medium of exchange much longer than in Sweden, but the power of the government, although great, could not impose, for any length of time, an artificial value on copper beyond its market one compared to silver, and contracts were made based on the latter metal in spite of the law. By an edict of 1655 copper was declared to be of the same value as silver. A copper copek of the same weight as a silver one was legally as valuable, no matter what the market ratio of the two metals might be, just as the present French law makes an ounce of gold

worth fifteeen and a half ounces of silver, regardless of the real ratio. In the former case, however, the proportion was arbitrary from the beginning, while in the other the rate was considered in 1785 to be the true one. The fluctuations were, as might be expected, frequent and great. At one time a silver copek was worth one hundred and fifty copper ones, although by statute they were declared to be of one and the same value. It was not until 1810, after much misery had been inflicted upon the people, that silver became the lawful standard, and it has remained so to the present day, although by a decree of 1876 coins are no longer struck for private account.

Spain, the principal recipient of the gold and silver of the new world, was reduced to a state of bankruptcy by the vast quantities of copper coins issued at a large profit to the government, which were made legal tender for any amount and which became the sole currency of the country. Weisse, the historian, writes: "Manufacturers hid their merchandise and work was everywhere interrupted. Gold and silver were either hoarded or exported, all confidence in the government was destroyed and merchants even refused to advance provisions for the royal table on credit; bankruptcy terminated worthily the disastrous reign of Philip the Fourth in 1665."

The impossibility of establishing a permanent ratio between copper and silver was abundantly demonstrated in most countries, but it was not until the early part of this century that England learnt the lesson fully, when she was obliged to recoin her copper money. That money having been issued with its intrinsic value equal to its nominal, and the price of copper having risen in the market, a penny was no longer worth the two hundred and fortieth part of a gold sovereign, but considerably more, so much more that the copper pieces began to be hoarded. I quote from Ruding: "the price of copper having risen, the subsequent issues were reduced in size and all the time the old Tower