A poud is equivalent to 36 lbs. English, and worth about £1679.
The weights and measures not enumerated here are explained at the foot of the page in which they occur.
REMARKS ON THE PRODUCTION OF THE PRECIOUS METALS, &c.
From the commencement of the 19th century, gold appears to have been always esteemed in Europe above the price at which it has been legally fixed in relation to silver; the commercial value of the metal has remained on an average about 1 per cent. above its legal value. In England alone gold circulates as money: in those countries which have maintained a double standard, gold, rarely coined, became immediately an article of merchandize, and disappeared from circulation. Gold regions were discovered without restoring the equilibrium of value between the two metals. Civilization, in its development from historical times, has but realized the legends of ancient fables. Gold, from its importance and constancy of value, appeared likely to remain for ever the symbol and the essential agent of wealth.
In this regular course of the progress of the precious metals, a pause, or rather a deviation, appears to have occurred. Gold seems to be tottering in its monetary supremacy; the fortress appears to have succumbed in a paroxysm of alarm. Ten years ago, every one was frightened at the prospect of the depreciation of silver; during the last eighteen months, it is the diminution in the price of gold that has been alarming the public. Some countries, which, but a short time since, were but too anxious to attract and retain gold in circulation, even at great sacrifices, have already shown a feverish anxiety to banish it altogether.
Holland took the lead in this movement, and in July, 1850, demonetized the gold 10-florin piece and the Guillaume. Portugal has partially followed this example, by prohibiting any gold to have a current value, except English sovereigns. Belgium, which in order to increase its gold circulation, had given a legal value to our 20 and 40-franc pieces, and had struck, in 1847, a mixed coinage of gold and base alloy, has demonetized its gold circulation, both home and foreign. Russia, by a ukase of 29th December, 1850, wishing to maintain the former equilibrium, has prohibited the export of silver. The French Government itself, struck with the novelty, and the sudden change, issued a commission for the purpose, as the Minister of Finance stated in his minute of the 14th December, 1850, of examining the questions connected with the simultaneous use of the precious metals, gold and silver, as a circulating medium of value.