Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/621

Rh to 1" in value when first coined, was the original dollar of the Constitution. This is, however, erroneous. The 412 grain silver dollar was not authorized until forty-five years later. The original silver dollar weighed 416 grains, and the ratio of silver to gold was 15 to 1, not 16 to 1.

Several modifications in weight and fineness of both gold and silver coins were made during the first few years, prior to the act of January 18, 1837, which greatly simplified the coinage by adopting the French decimal system, including a uniform "fineness," or proportion of 9 parts of gold to 1 part of copper for the gold coins, and the same proportion of silver and copper for the silver coins; the weights of the gold and silver coins were, at the same time, readjusted so as to make the ratio "16 to 1" between silver and gold.

The total issue of silver dollars coined under the acts of 1792 and 1837 until 1873, when the coinage was dropped, amounted to $8,031,238. When the Bland act was passed, in 1878, the silver in the silver dollar weighing 412 grains was worth 89.1 cents; to-day the silver in the same dollar is worth about 42.5 cents. In the first four months after the Bland bill was passed 8,573,500 Bland dollars were coined, or more than the entire issue of the old silver dollars in eighty years. In the same year also the Mint coined 11,378,610 "trade dollars," which weighed 7 grains more than the Bland dollars, but were not "legal tenders," and, though issued by the United States Mint, were refused by the United States Government in payment for postage stamps, taxes, or for other dues, while the Bland dollar, of lesser intrinsic value, was a legal tender, and good for payment of all debts. The total issue of trade dollars between 1873 and 1879 was 35,965,924,