Pagina 669 de 2651

From the high or low money price, either of goods in general, or

of corn in particular, we can infer only, that the mines, which

at that time happened to supply the commercial world with gold

and silver, were fertile or barren, not that the country was rich

or poor. But from the high or low money price of some sorts of

goods in proportion to that of others, we can infer, with a

degree of probability that approaches almost to certainty, that

it was rich or poor, that the greater part of its lands were

improved or unimproved, and that it was either in a more or less

barbarous state, or in a more or less civilized one.