the superintendents, and the Department, making them upon occasion mutually clairvoyant of all occurrences and operations, and also enabling important orders to be given from any center of authority, local or superior, at moments of exigency or crisis; secondly, by diminishing the number of wrecks through the display of cautionary signals warning vessels to remain in port, or to avoid the lee shore, upon indications of approaching tempest. The act of June 20, 1874, greatly promoted the efficiency of the service in many ways, and among them in authorizing means for obtaining statistics of disaster to shipping, which are now annually appended to the reports of the service, and are of great value in determining points at which life-saving stations, light-houses, &c., should be established, or to which they should be removed, by showing the recurring frequency of shipwrecks at those localities. The information they afford is obviously also of great value to ship-owners, underwriters, and all persons interested or concerned in commerce. The same act authorized the award of gold medals to persons distinguished for signal gallantry in saving life, and silver medals for persons who rendered similar service under less trying circumstances, a measure highly promotive of the work of life-saving by adding to it the stimulations of public honor. The annual report of the Life-Saving Service for the past year shows that an extraordinary success has attended its operations, especially since its reorganization in 1871. There are no statistics anterior to 1850 of the dreadful mass of marine calamities which made Cape Cod, New Jersey, and Cape Hatteras, each as much a by-word as Cape Horn. Between 1850 and 1871, the imperfect data which have been collected, and which represent the merest fragment of the traditional reality, show an average of 25.6 persons lost per annum on the Long Island and New Jersey coasts. Since 1871, on the same portions of the coast, the loss per annum has been only 3.2 persons, an amazing diminution, amounting, in fact, to 87 per cent. It is certain that under the system. atic operations of the service, the succession of Golgothas once presented by our coast, belongs wholly to the past. What was once current tragedy has become legend, and the platoons of surfmen have destroyed the horrors of the shore. It is probable that with the yearly growth of its organization, and the improvement of its appliances and methods, the service will yet make every life imperiled near the shore absolutely safe, complementing jeopardy with deliverance. A gratifying fact connected with the history of the service is that it has been furthered in Congress, as all scientific and purely humane interests should be, by men of the most contrary political opinions, nor has any party consideration ever been allowed to affect its organization. Its object is to make our national coasts secure against death by shipwreck to voyagers, and the measures promoting this end have been carried through by the active and generous support of all political parties. MINT AND COINAGE. HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES MINT AND COINAGE. The Mint, by the act of April 2, 1792, was established "for the purpose of a national coinage," at Philadelphia, that city then being the seat of Government. By the same act it was provided that the money of account should be expressed in dollars or units, dimes or tenths, cents. or hundredths, and mills or thousandths; and that all accounts in the public offices, or proceedings in the courts of the United States, should be kept and had in conformity therewith. Although the ideal unit of the colonial money of account was originally called a pound, the "Spanish dollar" was for many years before the establishment of the present form of government the money of commerce and practical monetary unit, and whether obligations were discharged in gold, silver, or paper money, a certain number of Spanish dollars constituted, specifically or by implication, the standard or measure of value. This had much to do with the selection in 1792 of the dollar as the monetary unit. By the act referred to, provision was also made for the issue of gold, silver, and copper coins. The gold coins were to be rated at 24.75 grains of pure gold to the dollar, and the silver coins at 3714 grains to the dollar, the relative value of the two metals being declared in the same law to be as 15 to 1. These standards were continued till 1834, when an act was passed reducing the pure gold from 24.75 to 23.20 grains to the dollar. By the act of January 18, 1837, the fineness of the gold was increased about three-fourths of one thousandth by changing from the standard of .899225 to 900 thousandths, which increased the pure gold to the dollar from 23.20 to 23.22 grains, at which it still remains. By this act the fineness of both the gold and silver coins was fixed at 900 thousandths. The silver dollar weighed 412 grains troy, and the gold was issued at the rate of 25.8 per dollar in value, the actual gold dollar coin not being authorized until 1849. The relation of the metals was, therefore, almost exactly 16 to 1. The quantity of pure silver in the dollar, as originally fixed, was not changed from the date of its issue down to April 1, 1873, when it was discontinued, but the weight of coins of less denomination was reduced from 412 to 384 grains standard per dollar of nominal value by the act of February 21, 1853, which fixed the weight of the half dollar at 192 |