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It would be more proper, perhaps, to consider this variation in

the average money price of corn as the effect rather of some

gradual rise in the real value of silver in the European market,

than of any fall in the real average value of corn. Corn, it has

already been observed, is, at distant periods of time, a more

accurate measure of value than either silver or, perhaps, any

other commodity. When, after the discovery of the abundant mines

of America, corn rose to three and four times its former money

price, this change was universally ascribed, not to any rise in

the real value of corn, but to a fall in the real value of

silver. If, during the sixty-four first years of the present

century, therefore, the average money price of corn has fallen

somewhat below what it had been during the greater part of the

last century, we should, in the same manner, impute this change,

not to any fall in the real value of corn, but to some rise in

the real value of silver in the European market.