Traffic has nearly quadrupled in twenty-five years, Increase in the value of railroad tonnage, Revision of the laws of the United States in 1873, Coinage laws-all the clauses of all laws relating to the weight, fineness and legal-tender value of United Reduction in value of half dollars and other fractional coins. Legal method of computing the value of the pound sterling, Laws authorizing the issue and redemption of United States notes and bonds, chronologically arranged, from 1860 United States notes made legal-tender for all debts, except duties on imports and interest on the public Made receivable the same as coin for all loans nego- 186 Made receivable in payment of all loans made to the Authority of the Secretary to make interest-bearing treasury notes legal tender; Act March 3, 1863, [In addition to the above captions there are marginal notes which head.] Tables 2 and 3.-Relative Values of Gold and United States Notes, with gold at any price not exceeding 285, Tables 4 and 5.-Monetary Units of all Countries, with the declared values of their coins in United States THE MONEY SYMBOLS. N the cover of this book are grouped, in one design, the three emblems from which are derived the dollar symbol, $, and the pound-sterling symbol, . The most prominent and interesting feature of the group is the two pillars, which were derived from the pillars of Hercules, one of the oldest symbols known to the human race. Their composition with the money symbols is due entirely to the emperor Charles the Fifth of Germany, who being also king of Spain adopted them as supporters on either side of his escutcheon, and also placed them in the device on the Spanish "pillar dollar” of the value of fifty-four pence sterling, which became the unit of Federal money in America, and upon the basis of which the pound sterling was valued at $4.44.44. Charles derived the idea from the poetic conceit which gave the name of "Pillars of Hercules" to the two mountains which stand on either side the Straits of Gibraltar, viz.: Calpe, or the Rock of Gibraltar, on the north, and Mount Abyla, in Africa, on the south. The scroll, which in the device on the dollar was twined about the pillars, has by long use been gradually modified, in making the symbol with the pen, so as to assume its present form in the dollar-mark. It is also presumed that in the pound-mark the L was substituted for the scroll, thus still retaining the two pillars which 13 had become what might be called the generic symbol of money in general, while the scroll and the referred to the two monetary units most widely known to the world—the L being from Libra, a balance; or, in this connection, a standard of values. But before Charles adopted the pillars as supporters to his arms, they had been part of the metropolitan emblem of the city of Seville, and the scroll bore the device Ne plus ultra, referring to the ancient belief that westward of that coast of Spain there was nothing but sea and space. Charles elided the particle ne, and left the motto Plus ultra, in which form it appeared in the arms of the Empire and on the pillar dollar. Originally the poundsterling symbol was made with two transverse bars. The custom of making it with only one horizontal bar, and the dollar-mark with only one upright bar, is an innovation of modern type makers. |