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render his researches more difficult, and lessen the certainty of those already made. We had good luck, and frequent good observations are the basis of our calculations.

"The mould is here about one foot deep. The ground thaws to the depth of only a few inches. In the hills of clay and sand, which are washed up by the sea, there is found wood; and elephants' teeth are common on the American coasts. The people of the two coasts, as the Aleutian and St. Laurence Islands, belong to the Asiatic race. Their navigation, customs, dress, arts, are all the same, or very much alike: and the celebrated Tschuktschi have not only no superiority over their brethren, but are even inferior to them in many respects. They and their American brethren hate each other heartily. The former told us that the latter, as they themselves do, fetch blue glass beads and iron from Kolima. But how do they do this? According to the testimony of the Russian navigators, Billings and Saritscheff, the polar glaciers are stated to lie close to the land. How have they made their way between the ice and land?

"The coast of California affords, in the same latitudes as Chili, a very scanty vegetation. The flora appears poor, and still almost unknown: Autumn has almost destroyed it. The iris changes, in spring, the plains to a flower-bed. We gathered many seeds. Spain supports these settlements at a great expense, in order to convert the Heathens; but this good work is badly undertaken and executed. They begin by boundless contempt of the people whose souls they desire to save; and the priests are neither acquainted with the language of their pupils, nor the arts in which they are to instruct them. The Indians in the missions soon die. It is calculated that 300 die out of 1000 every year. The military and missionaries cannot agree together. The English and Americans negociate about a settlement at the mouth of the river Columbia, and the Russian Kuskoff (of the American Company) built, five years ago, a few miles from here (St. Francesco, in California), a fort, from which the sea-otter is hunted along the whole Spanish coast.

"I only wish that there was less sand in Berlin, and more summer and green herbs. I am really freezing when I

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Dowson, Limehouse; a fine roomy vessel, of 350 to 370 tons. She is there undergoing much more than a complete repair; for the shipwrights are increasing the strength of the hull, by adding a new skin to the outside, and a lining to the inside, each of five or six inches thick, while many beams of large dimensions are placed on the bow and stern. The expense of this extraordinary preparation for a peculiar service, estimated at nearly 5000l. will be paid by government. The hire of the vessels is at the rate of 10s. per ton per month; but as government take the insurance, which is fixed at 3s. 6d. the price to the owners, upon the return of the vessels, is 6s. 6d. The crew of the Isabella will be about 50; the officers and passengers about 20. No expense is spared to provide for the comforts of both classes. Stauncheons are fixed on board for the erection of a roof over the deck, in the event of their being locked up in the ice. The berths or bed-places are capa ble of being removed on shore, and canvass and tarpaulins of large size are provided to be fixed over them. Coals to the amount of 150 tons, and flour for three years, will be carried out; with sour kraut, vinegar, and lime juice, in abundance. A new kind of log is fixed, the machinery of which runs from the cabin down the side of the rudder, nearly to the keel. The purpose is to shew, by a dial in the cabin, the rate of the vessel's sailing; but doubts are entertained, whether it may not impede the steering of the ship, and otherwise fail of its purpose, so that no great reliance is placed upon this experiment. The voyage, if unsuccessful, is expected to terminate about September, 1819; if it be successful, and that the navigators return by the Indian seas, a reward of 20,000l. will be distributed amongst the crews. Notwithstanding this, and an allowance of 31. per month, a difficulty is found in obtaining suitable hands for the voyage, and the vessels will complete their crews at the Orkneys, the great rendezvous of seamen for the Greenland service. Spare rudders, auchors, capstans, masts, spars, and boats, are carried by the vessels.

If an open navigation should be discovered across the Polar Basin, the passage over the Pole, or close to it, will be one of the most interesting events to science that ever occurred. It will be

the first time that the problem was prac tically solved, with which the learners of geography are sometimes puzzledthat of going the shortest way between two places lying east and west of each other, by taking a direction of north and south. The passage of the Pole will require the undivided attention of the navigator. On approaching this point, from which the northern coasts of Europe, Asia, and America, and every part of them, will bear south of him, nothing can possibly assist him in determining his course, and keeping on the right meridian of his destined place, but a correct knowledge of the time, and yet no means of ascertaining that time will be afforded him. The only time he can have, with any degree of certainty, as long as he remains on or near the Pole, must be that of Greenwich, and this he can know only from good chronometers; for from the general hazy state of the atmosphere, and particularly about the horizon, and the sameness in the altitude of the sun, at every hour in the four-andtwenty, he must not expect to ob tain an approximation even of the apparent time, by observation, and he will have no stars to assist him. All his ideas respecting the Heavens, and the reckoning of his time, will be reversed, and the change not gradual, as in proceeding from the east to the west, or the contrary, but instantaneous. The magnetic needle will point to its unknown magnetic Pole, or fly round from the point of the bowl from which it is suspended, and that which indicated north will now be south; the east will become the west, and the hour of noon will be that of midnight.-EDITOR.

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in possession of it. In default of this, the property goes to the state of Great Britain. According to these arrangements, it will be the son of the present Lord Rendlesham who will be called to these immense possessions. Lady Rendlesham has been pregnant. As may be supposed, this event gave rise to the most auspicious hopes, but they were disappointed. Supposing that the wishes of her family will be realized within another year, and adding to that thirty years of minority, which the son must complete, it is calculated, that the income, together with the interest of his property, will amount to the enormous sum of 162 millions of francs (about seven English millions).

To the DIRECTORS of the BANK OF
ENGLAND.

The following passage, which I con7ceive is founded in a very erroneous view of our present circulating medium, appeared in The Times of the 27th of February, in a letter under the signature of MERCATOR :-"The relative excess, therefore, of the Bank of England issues is infinitely greater than is indicated by the mere numerical increase, and seems of itself fully adequate to have produced the present depression in the exchange, and rise in the price of gold."

given for an ounce of standard gold, constitute the price of that ounce.

We persist to call gold coin our standard of value, but we have none of that metal in circulation; this measure of the prices of commodities is, therefore, a dead letter on the contrary, silver, the universal measure of value among our neighbours, of France, Holland, and Hamburgh, has been lately coined and extensively circulated among us: as then silver coin does actually measure the value of property on the Continent, so also it can, and does, at this instant, no gold circulating with it, fix the prices of all things in this country.

A Bank of England promissory note for one pound, or the note of any individual for the same sum, does not, like coin, possess within itself intrinsic value; but the Bank note is worth exactly the value of the quantity of coin for which it will interchange, and it now exchanges for twenty shillings of the new silver coinage; it therefore commands 1,556 8-22 grains of pure silver.

Having thus reduced the Bank-note into the quantity of pure silver which it does undeniably command, I proceed to inquire into "the present depression of the exchange.” I take the quotations from Lloyd's List of the 20th of February, and the quantities of pure silver contained in the foreign coins from the assays published in Dr. Kelly's Cambist.

It is first necessary to define what is really the valuable consideration contained in each pound sterling of a bill of exchange, and in Bank-notes, which, Amsterdam, at sight, sch. 36. 4. for 20s. sterling. Schellings 36. 4. computed from 370 6-10. grs. to the rix-dollar, yield of pure silver

Pure silver in 20s. sterling

In favour of London.....

Amsterdam, at sight, guilders 11 3 for 20s. sterling.

1615 grains.

1556 8-22.

58 14-22 grs. of silver.

Guilders 11. S. at 145 1-10 of pure silver per guilder..1617 9-10 grains. Pure silver in 20s. sterling

In favour of London...

Hamburgh, 24 usance, sch. 34 for 20s. sterling. Schellings 34 are equal to 123 marcs banco (and 27 marcs banco, being the Cologne marc weight pure silver) contain

Pure silver in 20s. sterling..

In favour of London....

Paris, at 3 days' sight, 24 francs for 20s. sterling. 24 francs at 69 4-10 of pure silver per franc Pure silver in 20s. sterling..

In favour of London...

.1556 8-22.

61 grains of silver.

of

.16634 grains. ..1556 8-22.

107 grains of silver.

..1665 6-PO.

..1556 8-22.

100 grains of silver.

So much for "the present depression in the exchange," upon which it is sufficient to observe, that as the balance of coin is from 3 to 7 per cent. in favour of London, the exchange does not require an export of bullion, consequently does not raise its price; and if an excessive issue of Bank-notes were the cause of the high price of gold, it would also increase the price of silver; for, as the relative quantities of the metals are neither increased nor diminished by any issue of Bank-notes, however great, such an issue would act equally on both of them. Standard silver is now 5s. 31d. to 5s. 4d. and gold 41. 2s. 6d. the ounce; the Mint prices are 5s. 6d. and 31. 17s. 104d. How then has it happened that the market-price of silver is below, and that of the gold above, the Mint price? Surely the poor Bank-note has not the property, at the same instant, to keep the price of silver below, and to raise that of gold above, the Mint price: the true cause of the present price of gold is to be sought and found in the absurdity of our existing Mint regulations.

If the nation persists to coin the two metals at fixed relative proportions, without permitting an agio on the gold coin, which, if permitted, would render the Mint and market prices synonimous terms, it must be contented to bid adieu to one of the two coinages, because that which is cheaper in the form of a coin than it is in bullion, will be inevitably withdrawn, and will become bullion.

The term " price" is imparted to all other commodities by the metal in coin, which governs a national circulation; among us that metal is now silver, and silver only: the market proportions between the metals cannot be bound or controlled by legal enactments or Mint regulations; they spring from the relative influences of supply and demand; and whoever will take the trouble to divide 41. 2s. 6d. by 5s. 4d. the present market prices of the standard ounces of gold and silver (no account being of course taken of the slight difference of the alloy in favour of silver), will find the proportions to be about 15 to 1. If we apply this undeniable fact to the existing silver coinage, and to the ounce of gold bullion, but substituting for 15 15 1-5th, the ancient Mint proportion of the metals in a state of purity, the present coinage of 66 shillings to the standard pound of silver, will bring out the standard ounce at 5s. 6d., the ounce of pure silver at 5s. 11d 13 37ths, the

ounce of pure gold at 41. 10s. 4d. 20-37ths, and the ounce of standard gold at 41. 2s. 10d. 6-37ths. Thus is the present price of standard gold justified, and clearly proved to spring from the Mint-rate of the existing silver coinage; and no human power can alter or materially abate that price, except by the alteration or the destruction of that silver coinage.

If it had been intended to secure gold coined at the old Mint rate from destruction, the value of the new silver coin ought rather to have been lowered than increased. Take the following example-Issue 60 shillings from the standard pound of silver, which is 5s. the ounce; multiply that sum by 15 1-5th, the old Mint proportion, and nearly the present market proportion, and the ounce of standard gold would come out at 31. 16s. or thereabouts, instead of 41. 2s. 10d. reckoned through the same ounce circulating, as it now does, for 5s. 6d.

As we were but lately without a national metallic medium, we had the fairest opportunity to have raised a system upon sound principles; but it seems that, in defiance of our own market proportions, our ancient Mint regulations, and the regulations of foreign mints, we have coined silver at an increased value, and gold at the ancient denomination of 31. 17s. 104d. per ounce, thereby decreasing the value of gold in coin in exactly the proportion that silver has been raised in coin; in short, the present Mint proportions do not exchange more than 13 77-100th parts of silver for one part in gold; therefore, as 15 1-5th, or 153 of silver (which is amply proved), can be obtained for this identical part or portion of gold in the bullion market, it is impossible that gold sovereigus can circulate in sufficient numbers, in the shape of coin, to become, as they are intended to be by law, the standard of value. By this utter contempt of the influence of market proportions upon Mint regulations, the Government offers a premium of 11 per cent. for the melting of the gold coin, and an exactly equivalent encouragement for the preservation of the existing silver coinage.

I suspect that, guided by the authority of the late Earl of Liverpool, the silver coinage has been issued and considered merely as counters possessing no influence; but these counters are now

acting with dreadful energy upon every gold sovereign that comes abroad.

We are then fixed to both horns of the dilemma; for, if the present circulation in silver be withdrawn and re-issued at lower denominations, the preparations, the labour, the expense, and the inconveniences of the measure, are to be encountered afresh; but if we uphold this circulation in silver at its present rate, wè cannot coin and retain gold money in circulation at 31. 178. 10. the ounce.

If it were inquired, whether, under these circumstances, the Bank restriction ought not to be continued until bullion can be purchased, coined, and retained in coin at 31. 17s. 10 d. the ounce, I should answer, that if the restriction is not to cease until gold bullion can be obtained at that price, under the existing Mint rate of the new silver coinage, it will never cease.

A depreciation of all property, to a considerable extent, has been effected by the new silver coinage; and if that coinage should hereafter force upon us, as I suspect it will, a coinage in gold at 41. 3s. per ounce, or thereabouts, this depreciation will be perpetuated.

A WARNING VOICE.

March 10th, 1818.

MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION.

No. XL.

LIST OF PUBLIC GENERAL ACTS, PASSED

57 GEO. III.

GENT General, repealing office of.....

Alnager, abolishing of...

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Cap.

A

1

41

109

48

Annuities, regulating the payment of certain

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Arms, preventing improper persons from having

21

Corn, importation of, for a limited time

85

Azores and Madeiras, exportation of oranges....

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Barbadoes (Port of Bridge Town in), allowing the importation and exportation

Barrack Department, vesting estates and property of barrack service in the Comptroller of

Court of King's Bench, facilitating the progress of business in...... Il of Exchequer, facilitating

74

equity suits in

18

-, regulating

certain offices in

60

9

Bermuda, allowing sugar and coffee imported into, to be exported to America, &c...

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28

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Bounty Money, authorizing execuEurop. Mag. Vol. LXXIII. Mar. 1818.

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