fell. A great increase of gold production has occurred in the period
since 1890. In part the rising prices since 1897 are explicable as the
periodic upswing of confidence and credit, but in the main doubtless
they are due to the stimulus of increasing gold supplies.[10] These
are but a few of many instances in monetary history, which, taken
together, make an argument of probability in favor of the quantity
theory so strong as to constitute practically an inductive proof.


[Footnote 1: The old-fashioned miser, however, withdraws his hoarded
gold for the time from its usual monetary function as an indirect
agent and treats it as a direct good yielding to him psychic income by
its mere possession.]

[Footnote 2: See on kinds of income, Vol. I, p. 26 ff.]

[Footnote 3: See secs. 1 and 2 of this chapter; also Vol. 1,
especially pp. 31-38 and 353-355.]

[Footnote 4: This means actually gratuitous, for any real difficulty
in getting metal to or from the mint operates as a cost in the
conversion of bullion into money, or _vice versa_; e.g., the gold may
be in Australia and the mint in London.]

[Footnote 5: See Vol. I, pp. 138 ff. and 361 ff.

FIG. 1. GOLD PRODUCTION OF THE WORLD, 1493-1914.

The changes in gold production here shown have bearings not only
upon problems of money, but in some respects upon nearly every modern