proached the _extra_ encouragement to the miners
vanishes. _That_ drooping, the production will droop, even if nature
should continue the extra supplies; and the old state of prices must
restore itself.

The whole turns upon the possibility of extending the market for gold. A
child must see that, if the demand for gold cannot be materially
increased, it is altogether nugatory that nature should indefinitely
enlarge the supply. In articles that adapt themselves to a variable
scale of uses, so as to be capable of substitution for others, according
to the relations of price, it is often possible enough that, in the
event of any change which may lower their price, the increased demand
may go on without assignable limits. For instance, when iron rises
immoderately in price, timber is substituted to an indefinite extent.
But, on the other hand, where the application is severely circumscribed,
no fall of price will avail to extend the demand. Certain herbs, for
instance, or minerals, employed for medicinal purposes, and for those
only, have their supply regulated by the demand of hospitals and of
private medical practitioners. That demand being once exhausted, no
cheapness whatever will extend the market. Suppose the European market
for leeches to be saturated; every man, suppose, is supplied; in that
case, even an _extra_ thousand cannot be sold. The purpose which leeches
answer has been met. And after _that_ nobody will take them as a gift.
But in the case of gold, it is imagined that, although the market is
pretty stationary whilst the price is stationary, let that price
materially lower itself, and immediately the substitutions of gold for
other metals, or for other decorative materials (as ivory, etc.), would
begin to extend; and commensurately with such extensions the regular
gold market would widen. This is the prevailing conceit. Now let us
consider it.

What are the known applications of gold in the old state of
circumstances, which may be supposed capable of furnishing a basis for
extension in the altered circumstances? I will rapidly review them.
First, a very large amount of gold more than people would imagine is
annually wasted in gilding. Much of what has been applied to other
purposes is continually reverting to the market; but the gold used in
gilding is absolutely lost. This already makes a drain upon the gold
market; but will that drain be materially larger in the event of gold
falling by 50 _per cent._? Ap