Page:Coin's Financial School.djvu/122

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104
COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL.

QUANTITY SILVER IN THE WORLD.

"It is proposed by the bimetallists to remonetize silver, and add it to the quantity of money that is to be used for measuring the value of all other property.

"In dollars at a ratio to gold of sixteen to one, there are about the same number of dollars of silver in the world as gold. The report of the director of our mint says there was in the world in 1890, in the form of silver coin and bullion used as money, $3,820,571,346.

"A cubic foot of silver weighs 10,474 troy ounces, and using 371¼ grains to each dollar, this will make a cubic foot of cast silver worth $13,544.

"You get this by multiplying the 10,474 by 480, the number of grains in an ounce, and dividing the result by 371¼, the number of grains in a dollar. You then want to divide the $3,820,571,346, the silver of the world, by 13,544, the number of dollars in a cubic foot. It gives 282,085 cubic feet of silver in the world.

"Can you comprehend what a quantity of silver this is? I will tell you how. It will make a block of silver sixty-six feet wide, sixty-six feet long, and sixty-six feet high.

"You can put it all all the silver of the world in one of the rooms of this building, and anyone entering at the main entrance on Michigan avenue would have to inquire in which room of the building the silver of the world was, before he could find it.

"It will go in the Board of Trade room and still leave sufficient space, I imagine, for you gentlemen to do some business on dull days."

Coin now had the teller of the Metropolitan National Bank hand him a satchel containing one hundred and fourteen silver dollars. With these he showed that sixty-four silver dollars would lay down in eight rows, of