being decided at present. The immediate introduction of a universal gold currency is by the admission of all parties eminently undesirable, and this is the only settled point in the controversy. (3) The last head which the bimetallic question embraces is the practical expediency of joining in a bimetallic league with a ratio of 1 to 15. With regard to this aspect of the question the answer, for England at least, ought to be a negative one. The present English monetary system has worked well. It is firmly rooted in English habits, and is not therefore to be lightly abandoned. Again, the interests of English creditors are plainly opposed to any movement calculated to raise the value of silver relatively to gold, and to depreciate prices in general. The threat of some bimetallists, that all nations will be driven to adopt a gold standard, and thus produce a crisis in the English money market by the resulting gold drain, is of no weight; any drain of English gold will have to be paid for at a high price, and the simple expedient of raising the bank-rate will restore as much bullion as is needed in England. The interests of other countries cannot be so clearly determined. A state like Germany, holding a large store of depreciated silver, may desire other states to become bimetallic, but will hardly desire to do so herself. The interests of India and other silver-standard countries have been considered before. When all these aspects of the question have been examined the most probable conclusion is, that the chances of a bimetallic league in the immediate future are very small, and that future monetary evolution will be ruled rather by the course of events, and the pressure of circumstances in each separate state, than by the conscious deliberations of an international conference.
Bibliography.—The literature of the various questions connected with money is very extensive, and only a brief notice of it can be given here. The principal authority among the Greeks is Aristotle, who in two passages (Nic. Eth., v. 5; Pol., i. 9) has discussed the qualities of money, and pointed out its functions with great clearness. Xenophon also, in his work On the Athenian State, dealt with the value of the precious metals, though his views are partially erroneous. The only passages worth noticing in Latin literature are those of Pliny, who seems to have held a form of the mercantile theory, and Paulus, who, in a fragment preserved in the Digest, has treated of the origin of money. The medieval literature embraces several works dealing specially with the question of changes in the standard of money, which were condemned by the theologians. The first treatise professedly on the special subject of money is a work by Nicholas Oresme, bishop of Lisieux (ob. 1382), entitled De Origine, Natura, Jure, et Mutationibus Monetarum, reprinted in 1864 (Paris) by Wolowski, and even now worth reading. The next work to be noticed is the De Monetarum Potestate simul et Utilitate libellus (Nuremberg, 1542), a fragment of a larger treatise on economics, of Gabriel Biel (ob. 1495). It has been remarked that “the favourite subject of the economists of the 16th century was that of money.” The first of these works to be noticed is De Monetæ Cudendæ Ratione by Copernicus, reprinted along with the work of Oresme above mentioned. At a later date the Jesuit Mariana discussed the variations in prices under the title De Monetæ Mutatione. In the same century an anonymous work appeared in German, with the title Gemeine Stimmen von der Muntze (1530). In 1588 Davanzati issued Lezione delle Monete, advocating a bimetallic system. The problem of the elevation of prices caused by the American mines led to the issue of several works, one of the most remarkable being the Dialogues of William Stafford (1581).
In the 17th century Sir W. Petty dealt with money in a tract, Quantulumcumque (1682). The recoinage of 1696 called forth Lowndes's Essay for the Amendment of the Silver Coins, and Locke's Further Considerations concerning raising the Value of Money. In the 18th century the Reports of Sir I. Newton, as Master of the Mint, are valuable. Cantillon's Essai (Paris, 1755) contains in its 2d and 3d parts a sound account of currency. Harris's Essay on Money and Coins (1757) is also useful. An earlier tract by Rice Vaughan, Discourse of Coin and Coinage (1675), is brief, but correct in principle. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (London, 1776) discusses the subject of money in B. i. chs. 4 and 5, while seigniorage is examined in B. iv. ch. 6. The treatise, The Coins of the Realm (London, 1805), by the first earl of Liverpool, elaborately discussed the question of the proper standard, and has powerfully influenced monetary legislation in England and Germany. Ricardo's pamphlets on the bullion question added to the knowledge of the laws which regulated a depreciated currency. Senior, in his Lectures on the Cost of obtaining Money (London, 1829), developed the theory of the international distribution of the precious metals.
The last half century has been a time of active discussion regarding monetary questions,—the gold discoveries, international coinage, decimal coinage, bimetallism, the resumption of specie payments in countries where an inconvertible currency has existed, each of these topics having had its special literature. Some of these works have been mentioned when dealing with the special questions they refer to, and these, in turn, refer to many others. It will suffice here to mention more general works. The theory of money is dealt with by the leading English economists in their systematic works (Mill, Principles, B. iii. chs. 7–10, 19, 21; Fawcett, Manual, B. iii. chs. 5, 6, 15, 16; Shadwell, System, B. iii. chs. 1–3 and 8), also by Cherbuliez (Précis, B. ii. ch. 3, vol. i. and B. ii. ch. 3, vol. ii.). Chevalier has devoted the third volume of his Cours (Paris, 1842–50) to the subject, with the title of “La Monnaie.” The late Professor W. S. Jevons's valuable work, Money and the Mechanism of Exchange, and Professor Hussey Walsh's concise Treatise on Metallic Currency (Dublin, 1853) may also be used. More elaborate than either of these is F. A. Walker's Money, the most comprehensive work on the subject in English; his smaller work, Money in its Relation to Trade and Industry, is likewise very good. Wolowski's L'Or et l'Argent contains much information, as does also Knies's Das Geld. E. Seyd's Bullion and Foreign Exchanges is serviceable, but the changes since its publication (1869) deprive it of most of its value. The various editions of Tate's Cambist give the most accurate (though often imperfect) statements as to the facts of currency. Jacob's work on The Production and Consumption of the Precious Metals gives many interesting details, though the conclusions are often fanciful, and the authorities relied on not trustworthy. The recent work of Del Mar, History of the Precious Metals (London, 1880), furnishes a criticism and continuation of Jacob, and supplies many new details. His criticism of the “cost of production” theory as applied to gold and silver is especially useful. Some of his views on the moral aspects of the question need qualification. Professor Sumner's History of the American Currency may be relied upon for its facts. The Reports of the various conferences also supply abundant information on their special topics. Among these may be mentioned the Proceedings of the Paris conferences of 1867, 1878, and 1881; the Decimal Coinage Commission (1868); the French Enquête Monétaire (1870); and the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on the Depreciation of Silver (1876). The Reports of the (English) Mint furnish information as to the coinage changes of each preceding year.
MONFERRATO, or Montferrat, an ancient marquisate of North Italy, in the valley of the Tanaro, the name of which still survives in the fuller title (Casale Monferrato) of the town of Casale. The princes of Monferrato were among the most powerful Italian families of the Middle Ages. Among them were several famous crusaders: Conrad, prince of Tyre from 1187 to 1192, the valiant opponent of Saladin; and Boniface, king of Thessalonica from 1183 to 1207. In 1305, on the extinction of the male line, the marquisate passed to Theodore Palæologus through his mother, the empress Irene. The Palæologi became extinct in 1533. The duchy was subsequently attached to Mantua, and ultimately absorbed in Savoy in the beginning of last century.
Beaune on the 10th May 1746. He was educated first at the college of the Oratorians at Beaune, and then in their college at Lyons,—where, at sixteen, the year after he had been learning physics, he was made a teacher of it. Returning to Beaune for a vacation, he made, on a large scale, a plan of the town, inventing the methods of observation and constructing the necessary instruments; the plan was presented to the town, and preserved in their library. An officer of engineers seeing it wrote to recommend Monge to the commandant of the military school at Mézières, and he was received as draftsman and pupil in the practical school attached to that institution; the school itself was of too aristocratic a character to allow of his admission to it. His manual skill was duly appreciated: “I was a thousand times tempted,” he said long afterwards, “to tear up my drawings in disgust at the esteem in which they were held, as if I had been good for nothing better.” An opportunity, however, presented itself: being required to work out from data supplied to him the “défilement” of a proposed fortress (an operation then only performed by a long arithmetical process), Monge,
substituting for this a geometrical method, obtained the