[Footnote e: Represented dollar for dollar by gold kept in the U.S.
treasury.]

[Footnote f: Represented dollar for dollar by silver kept in the U.S.
treasury.]

[Footnote g: Besides, there were about $312,000,000 in the U.S.
Treasury not offset by outstanding paper. The total money stock (in
circulation and in the Treasury, eliminating certificates representing
gold and silver), was about $4,233,000,000, of which 70 per cent was
metal (largely represented in circulation by paper certificates) and
30 per cent was paper. Of the 70 per cent 50 was gold, 18 was silver,
and 2 was copper and nickel.]

§ 4. #Light-weight fractional coins.# The standard metal is usually
too valuable to be suitable for coins of the smaller denominations.
Therefore, when gold is the standard, copper, nickel, and silver
remain in restricted use. But when coins of these metals are issued
at weights corresponding with their bullion value, difficulties arise.
Not only are they too heavy for convenience, but with every slight
rise in their bullion value as compared with that of the standard
metal, they become worth more as bullion than as coin and begin to
disappear from circulation. This happened often throughout the Middle
Ages and until the nineteenth century. The attempt was generally made
to coin gold and silver at a ratio of weight corresponding exactly
to their market values at a given moment and, every time the market
conditions varied, the best full-weight coins of one of the two metals
were taken out of circulation. [4]The country thus suffered for lack
either of the larger gold coins or of fractional coins. At length, to
remedy this difficulty, fractional silver coins, often called