Robinson Crusoe's Money;

ow they Cam

tion of the new metal also showed that it possessed many other remarkable qualities besides brightness. It was found it could easily be melted and cast, and also be readily molded without heat by hammering and pressing; and that when so cast, molded, and pressed, it persistently retained the shape and impression that were given it. Further, that it could be drawn into the finest of wire, hammered into the thinnest of plates and leaves, and be bent and twisted to almost any extent without breaking; that an admixture with it of the slightest impurity or alloy so immediately changed its color, that color became to a very high degree a test of its purity;1 that fire, water, air, and almost all the agencies destructive to other things, had comparatively little or no effect upon it; that with the exception of size and we

f gold; if a maxim was enunciated which by general consent embodied the best rules of life, it was called golden; if a law or precept was thought worthy of being kept in ever-present remembrance before the people, it was emblazoned in letters of gold; while for speech, prophecy, or poetry, this same metal has ever been a never-failing source for the finest of comparisons and the most attractive of figurative illustrations. In short, from the time of its first discovery, among all

and, and made exchangeable for all other things, it soon acquired spont

ed to the wants of the island exclusively, its value in time would have undoubtedly been no greater than copper or iron, and possibly not so great. But, very curiously, an abundant supply did not continue. That which was obtained first and with little labor proved to be the result of the decay and washing of the rocks through long ages; and when the readily accessible or surface deposits bec

these, in turn, were followed by the unskilled laborers in such numbers, that had it not been for the encouragement growing out of the hope of suddenly enriching themselves through the chance discovery of a great nugget (as sometimes happened), the mines would have been entirely deserted. As it was, the supply of gold greatly fell off, and, the demand for it remaining about the same, the purchasing power of the stock on hand for other commodities gradually increased, until it came about that the result of an average day's labor in digging gold was found to buy more than the result of an average day's labor in other occupations. But as soon as this was observed, an additional supply of labor went back to gold-mining, and continued to follow it, until an equalization of results from effort in gold-digging and effort in other corresponding employments was again established, as before related. And this interchange of employments and equalization of results from labor went on, year by year, until at last the people, as it were by instinct, found out that a given quantity of gold represen

became unfashionable; the cattle money had to be fed every day to keep it from experiencing a heavy discount, and penned up every night to prevent it from walking off; the wheat money was always liable to be injured by damp or devoured by vermin; while twenty pounds of pig-iron had proved too heavy for their old limbs to carry to the store every time they wanted to purchase a little cloth or tobacco. But here was something at last which completely satisfied the necessities of their situation, and enabled them to feel certain that, whether they buried it in the ground, where it was always damp and moldy; or put it in the chimney, where it was always hot

But he was soon shut up by some one asking him, why, if the old women wanted to keep something by them perfectly secure against a rainy day, and slept better nights because they knew they had it, they shouldn't be allowed that privilege? and if there could be any possible reason why any

olved great inconveniences; and although the statement of a person of recognized honesty that he had proved the value of the gold he offered in payment was generally accepted, it was nevertheless recognized that there was no more unfairness or discourtesy in the claim of the grocer to test the quality of the money of his customer by scales and acids, than there was in the claim of the customer to test, by tasting, the salt and sugar of the grocer. As might be inferred, therefore, it often required a good deal of time to complete the most ordinar

f money which Crusoe had found in the chest, and in his disgust had buried and utterly forgotten. Every body at once recognized the metal to be gold, and was perfectly willing to exchange other commodities for it with the finders, the same as he was willing to do for any other gold. But why it should be in the form of flat round disks, and stamped with inscriptions and images, was something that puzzled every body; and the Antiquarian and Philosophical Society called a special meeting to discuss the subject. Some, looki

e it in making an exchange. An arrangement was accordingly at once made for a public establishment-afterward called a mint-to which every person who so desired could bring his gold and receive it back again after it had been divided into suitable pieces of determinate weight and fineness; the fact that the weight and fineness of each piece had been so proved being indicated by appropriate marks upon the metal. And in this manner "coined money" first came into use on the island. And by this time, also, the money which Robinson Crusoe found in the chest, and which, when it first came into his possession, had neither utility, value, n

as has already been pointed out, money came into use in the first instance without statute, and was the result, as it were, of men's instincts; and the subsequent choice by them of gold, in preference to any other commodities for use a

him scales and other tests. The only persons dissatisfied were the scale-makers, who found their business almost destroyed, and they petitioned the authorities to have their interests protected by the enactment of a law compelling all persons to

weight and value, with a small portrait of the founder of the island community, was called a "Crusoe;" and a piece of double the weight of the last, or twenty times the weight of the first, with a large portrait on it, was called a "Robinson Crusoe" or a "double Crusoe." Some time after, when the island became generally known to the rest of the world, it was found that these coins exactly corresponded in weight, f

d differs from the first to the extent of one per cent. of admixture with a baser metal; while the third contains two per cent., the fourth three per cent., and so on, until in the last ribbon, or strip, the amount of gold and alloy is equal. The color of the first ribbon is, in the highest sense of the term, golden or typical. The color of the second differs from the first by a shade, which shade in

s of this clay-all natural deposits-taken from such localities as might furnish a fair assay of the whole-the cellar of the market on Market Street, near Eleventh, and from a brick-yard in the suburbs of the city-all yielded, on careful analysis, small amounts of gold; the average amount indicated being seven-tenths of a grain-or about three cents' worth-of gold for every cubit foot of

gold goes with it to pay for the carting; and if the bricks which front our houses could have brought to their surface, in the f

ld from the sands of the river; but, as under most circumstances he can earn ten sous more by working in the fields on the banks of

woman in the country will fill her stockings with it and bury it. It will be hoarded, sir; hoarded to the extent of removing millions from the currency of the country." The general paused

l recently in use as money in some parts of Cal