Page:Coin's Financial School.djvu/90

 72 with anything like their specific gravity, discolor the skin when worn as ornaments.

"When we consider that the native Indians of this country were known to give up large quantities of valuable property in exchange for a few trinkets and ornaments, and that large domains of land were purchased in this way, it is natural to believe that a civilized man would give up as much as a bushel of wheat for the amount of silver in one of our silver fifty-cent pieces when fashioned into a ring.

"Cups, pitchers, spoons, table knives, and other forms of table ware made from or plated with silver or gold, will not stain either the liquids or food. Their use in manufacture, chemistry, and some other branches of the arts and sciences are now regarded as indispensable, and more than one-half of the total output of the world is so used.

"It has been said that silver and gold have no intrinsic value; this is not true. They are the only things used by Webster in the copy of his dictionary which I have to illustrate the meaning of the word 'intrinsic.'

"But exchange value, in the sense that a civilized or uncivilized person will barter or trade one property for another, is the primary value of all property.

"Iron cannot be used for food, but its utility gives it an exchange value. Silver can be utilized for many mechanical purposes for which iron serves, and can be adapted to a thousand uses where iron would not be suitable.

"Therefore, what the value of silver and gold would be if not used as money, to be expressed in dollars and cents, would depend, first, on what the new unit or dollar was, and then the abundance of the material from which it was being made; but when established, they would,