a Rupee calculated at coining rate, $0.4737. b Silver ruble calculated at coining rate, $0.7718. c Florin calculated at coining rate, $0.4052, under the coinage act of August 2, 1892.

The following coinage was executed at the mints of the United States during the fiscal year 1898:

The following table exhibits the value of the pure silver in a silver dollar at prices of silver per ounce fine from $0.50 to $1.2929,

The following table shows the bullion value of 3714 grains of pure silver at the annual average price of silver each year from 1537 to 1896, inclusive:

Coinage value in gold of an ounce of fine silver at the ratios 1:15–1:40.

Below is given the coinage of the mints of the United States from their organization, 1792, to June 30, 1898:

In the following table is given the coinage of gold and silver of the mints of the world for the calendar years 1873-1896:

NOTE.-This table includes recoinages. The amount of recoinage of gold coins in the United States during the above period is $45,354,422 and of silver coins $35,616,971.14. It is not practicable to state the recoinage of other nations, as the reports received do not state it separately. The recoinage of gold in the United States is much smaller in proportion to our total coinage of gold than in most foreign countries, because in the United States coin is represented in circulation principally by paper money.

THE PURPOSE OF COINAGE.

The purpose of coinage is simply to make safe and convenient what would otherwise be unsafe and inconvenient. Coinage is not necessarily, and probably was not originally, a function of government. The word dollar is itself a memento of coinage by private individuals. The first thalers or dollars were made at a private mint in Joachimsthal, in Bohemia, in 1581. In those troublous times princes and kings were playing fast and loose with their coinage, were putting into the coins less than the weight of metal certified by the stamp, and compelling people by legal-tender edicts to accept them as of full weight. The great merit of the Joachimsthal mint was that the pieces or coins made by it were of uniform goodness. Thus they attained great popularity and wide use, and the thaler came to be known and prized all over Europe. In the early days of California, when it was more inaccessible than the uttermost part of the earth is now, private coinage was general. Individuals and companies refined gold and ran it into pieces of