Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/622

and the total issue of Bland dollars, from 1878 to the close of the fiscal year 1897, was 451,993,742.

The following table shows the total coinage value of all denominations of silver coin from the establishment of the United States Mint in 1792 to the end of the last fiscal year, June 30, 1897:

Dollar $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$ 12, 1873	$8,031,238 00
	1878 to June 30. 1897	451,993,742 00
Trade dollars		35,965,924 00
Half dollars		134,033,195 00
Columbian half dollars		2,501,052 50
Quarter dollars		52,395,052 00
Columbian quarter dollars		10,005 75
Twenty-cent pieces		271,000 00
Ten-cent pieces		29,428,613 90
Five-cent pieces		4,880,219 40
Three-cent pieces		1,282,087 20
	Total	$720,792,129 75

It thus appears that the Bland dollars coined since 1877 exceed in coining value all the other issues of silver money from the establishment of the Mint in 1792 to the present day.

Although Congress appropriated a sum of money ($40,000) to "pay the freight" on Bland dollars from the mints or subtreasuries to any part of the country, the Government has never succeeded in getting more than a small proportion of the vast accumulation

$50 gold piece. Augustus Humbert, United States assayer of gold, California, 1855.
(887 thousandths.)

of Bland dollars into circulation. It became necessary, therefore, to construct enormous storage vaults of steel, some of which will hold more than one hundred million of these dollars. The depreciation in market value of silver in the Bland dollars and uncoined bars is estimated to be about $200,000,000.

The dropping of the original 41212 grain silver dollar from the law of 1873 was purposely done in order to make a place for the