other Possessions of United Kingdom, 1874). The annual average export in these fifteen years was 9,747,635, and must be held to measure amply the produce of the gold and silver mines of Australia. The annual production of bullion in the United States and Australia cannot, on these data, be estimated at more than 28 millions sterling. Humboldt found the annual produce of the gold and silver mines of America, Europe, and Northern Asia, at the beginning of the century, to be about 9,700,000. The yield of gold and silver from the same sources in 1850-57 was estimated by M Culloch, in the Commercial Dictionary, to bo 14,000,000. The old gold and silver mines can hardly have become more productive since the advent of the California!! and Australian diggings, so that it would appear the latter have increased the visible annual supply of gold and silver about threefold, or from 14,000,000 to 42,000,000. Japan, so far as can be judged from the exchanges, must now be added to the list of gold-producing countries. For several years in succes sion Japan has exported considerable and apparently increasing amounts of treasure, or gold and silver coins of its own mint. In 1874 this export amounted to $13,332,794, or nearly three millions sterling (Sir Henry Parkes s Summary of Consular Reports). During the first six months of 1875 the imports of bullion from Yokohama to London were 1,257,170 gold, 95,080 silver ; and not improbably the next great access of the product of gold mines may be from that part of the world. But notwith standing this marked increase of gold and silver since 1850, when one considers the increase of population, the still greater increase of trade and industry, and the vast extension of financial and commercial affairs in the samo period, it may be held doubtful whether gold and silver have lost any of their old proportion to the need for them
and to the work they have to do.When the coffers of the great banks of Europe were filled with the virgin gold of California and Australia, one of the first consequences was a desire on the part of countries in which silver was either a collateral standard of value with gold, or the sole standard of value, to discard the silver standard and adopt gold as the sole standard, involving in either case a large displacement of silver coinage and reserve, and a large infusion in its room of gold coinage and reserve. This result was exhibited in the mint opera tions both of France and England. In the former country silver retains its quality of legal tender in a modified degree ; but the proportion of silver authorized by the Bank Charter Act of 1844 has long disappeared from the bullion reserve of the Bank of England, which now con sists wholly of gold. It was one of the first resolutions of the German Empire, on the conclusion of the war of 1870-71, not only to make gold the sole standard, but to dislodge all the old silver money of the German States ; and in the same connection it may be observed, that the director of the United States Mint, in reporting 20,000,000 as the annual produce of the United States mines, uses this fact as an argument for the immediate resumption of specie payment or, in other words, that the American people, by a strenuous effort, should strive to keep as much of the bullion-product of their mines at home as may enable the whole currency of the Union to become either gold and silver, or of convertible gold value. This preference for the more precious metal as the sole standard of value, and for gold and silver coin as a medium of general circulation, may be expected to extend throughout the world in proportion as the produce of the mines may be increased ; and in this respect alone there is a vast opening for the beneficial use both of gold and silver. It gives some idea of the immense service of bullion in the international exchanges, as well as in the replenishment of the internal metallic circulations, to observe that in the thirteen years 1858-70 the annual average registered import of gold and silver (real value) to the United Kingdom was 27,083,330, the average annual export 22,095,346 ; and that in the same thirteen years the average annual coinage of gold and silver in the Royal Mint was 4,854,661, or nearly equal to the annual excess of imports over exports of bullion, which flows in all this volume through London to and from every part of the globe (Statistical Abstract for United Kingdom, 1872).
While the production of gold has declined of late years from the maximum attained after the Calif ornian and Australian discoveries, the production of silver has begun to increase, and in the rapid development of minerals containing this metal, is generally expected to increase in the future. But it would seem premature from the facts of past experience to anticipate any permanent depreciation of the value of silver in relation to gold. The price of silver in the market of London from 1833 to 1873 ranged from 59d. to 62^d. per oz., and during that time fully maintained its standard value in par with that of gold (Table of Messrs Pixley and Abell, bullion-brokers, Lon don). But in the subsequent years a decline in the price of silver has occurred, and it fell in 1875 to 56d. per ounce. This may be the result of temporary causes, such as (1) the fact of 20,000,000 of German silver, displaced by the new gold coinage hanging over the market ; and (2) a cessation of demand for India and China, which the ex changes of the East with Europe may at any time alter.
BULLS AND BRIEFS, Papal, are the two kinds of authoritative letters issued by the popes in their official capacity as head of the church, the bulls being the more important. They are distinguished from each other by several marks.
A bull is written on thick polished parchment, com monly in angular Gothic characters, and in Latin ; it is always open ; it commonly begins with the name of the Pope, but without adding any number (e.g., Pius, not Pius IX.), then follows the term episcopus, then servus servorum Dei, then either the phrase ad perpetuam rei memoriam, or the greeting in Domino salutem et apostolicam benedictionem. It closes with the place and the date, which is commonly given according to the kalends, nones, or ides of the month and the year of the pope. The chief mark, however, of a bull is the seal. The popes use three kinds of seals 1, the signet-ring; 2, since the end of the 5th century, the bulla; 3, from the 13th century, the annulus piscatoris. A bull is sealed with the second, the bulla, and from this it derives its name. The bulla is a globular seal of lead; on the one side there is, in modern times, the heads of St Peter and St Paul, with the letters S. PE., and S. PA.; on the other side is the name of the Pope, Formerly the bulla often bore other impressions; the name of the Pope was always given, but sometimes the title Papa was impressed on the opposite side; sometimes a Scriptural image, such as the Good Shepherd. The popes evidently began to use this particular seal when, from the growing weakness of the empire, the temporal authority of the bishop of Rome began to be a real thing, and the popes assumed the consular dress and insignia; for the bulla had been used by the emperor of Constantinople, and its use was permitted to many of the great officers of state who were accustomed to act for the emperor. The bulla was the common imperial seal, and was used not merely by the emperors of the East, but also by the early German emperors, and even by some of the minor European sovereigns. It was sometimes made of gold, sometimes of silver, often of lead, and it was not until the earlier part of the Middle Ages that the leaden bulla became the distinctive mark of a Papal charter.
