Year: 1867

The idea Of a universal language has been
for centuries dream, or rather prophetic
inspiration of some Of the foremost think
ers of the race; for there is nothing lmpos-
sible in the idea nor implorable in its fulfill
ment. But human progress IS by steps
gradations-on thing at a time-and before
we can welcome the beginning of an ap-
proach to a common language expressive OF
ideas which compass all the subjects upon
which the human mind exerts itself, we
must be content if we can see an agreement
in a common method of Interpretation on
one single subject, that of money. Ii the
love of money is the root of all evil, Its
proper use is the life of all progress, and
whatever may facilitate that use Is worthy
Of attention.


A system Of international currency has
been proposed, and a convention agreed
upon by the leading nations of continental
Europe has recommended such a change IN
the value Of the different national coins all
shall make them, their divisions, and multi
plier, interchangeable without loss. 1t Is
not proposed to change the name or charac-
ter of the present coins in use by the people
of different nations, but only to equallze
their values, The proposition OF the con-
yention is to adopt the French Napoleon as
the unit of standard for gold, probably from
the fact that it already circulates without
difficulty all over the continent and Is large
ly current in Asia and Africa. The stand
ard Of ineness established by the United
States government is common also to at least
eight gold coins in foreign countries. The
difference in value at present is very trltlIng
between FIVE American dollars, one English
sovereign, twenty-five French francs, five
/ fNa-r,,,, th,l hr1pHraH SnunIG h
reals, FIVE Brazilian milreis, and FIVE dollars
of the Central and South American States;
so the difficulty of equaliZiug coins OF the
different nations is reduced to very small
limits The English sovereign, if reduced
IN value only tour cents would be of the
same worth as twenty-five francs. and the
American dollar would have to be reduced
little over three cents to conform to the
FIVE francs Of France.


The equalization Of values thus assured,
the numerical relation of the different coins
one TO another would seem to present no
great difficulty Notwithstanding the ap-
parant advantages of some other systems, 1t
would seem that none possess so many good
points with so few Objectionable features as
the decimal. Lord Oyerstone advocates
twelve as a standard Of division and multi
plication, and Mr. Nystrom sixteen on ac-
count of its susceptibility OF binary division;
but it is evident that in either case other
representative ehTacters must be added to
our present system of notation, which would
for a long time prevent the adoption of
such a system. Moreover, the manifest ad-
vantages of the French decimal system of
weights and measures and its very general
and increasing use as well as the partial in
PRODUCTION of the decimal system Of coinage
in other countries beside the United States
would seem to designate this as the proper
bias for divisions and multipies of value.
We presume it cannot be successfully dispU-
ted that our system Of money is superior in
convenience to that of any other nation. 1t
follows the system of notation in use
throughout the world, and gives less troub-
le to the foreigners than that of any other
country If a common system of coinage
be generally adopted for hcilating monetary
exchanges We sincerely hope that the deci-
NAL basis viii also be employed to determine
the relations Of the coins Scientific Amer-
tcdl.