Page 573 sur 2651

A considerable quantity, too, must be annually lost in

transporting those metals from one place to another both by sea

and by land. In the greater part of the governments of Asia,

besides, the almost universal custom of concealing treasures in

the bowels of the earth, of which the knowledge frequently dies

with the person who makes the concealment, must occasion the loss

of a still greater quantity.

The quantity of gold and silver imported at both Cadiz and Lisbon

(including not only what comes under register, but what may be

supposed to be smuggled) amounts, according to the best accounts,

to about six millions sterling a-year.