States the panic was confined to a few; but on the Continent of Europe every government, rich or poor, thought it needful to make provision against the threatened evils.  An immediate alteration in prices was looked for; money was to become so abundant that all ordinary commodities were to rise, but more especially the proportion between gold and silver was to be disturbed, some thinking that the latter might become the dearer metal.  The Governments of France, Holland, and Russia, in particular, turned their attention to the monetary question, and in 1850 the Government of Holland availed themselves of a law, which had not before been put in operation, to take immediate steps for selling off the gold in the Bank of Amsterdam, at what they supposed to be the highest prices, and to stock themselves with silver.

“Palladium, which is likewise a superior white metal, was held more firmly, and expectations were entertained that it would become available for plating.  The stock, however, was small.  The silver operation was carried on concurrent with a supply of bullion to Russia for a loan, a demand for silver in Austria, and for shipment to India, and it did really produce an effect on the silver market, which many mistook for the influence of Californian gold.  The particular way in which the Netherlands operations were carried on was especially calculated to produce the greatest disturbance of prices.  The ten-florin pieces were sent to Paris, coined there into Napoleons, and silver five-franc pieces drawn out in their place.

“At Paris the premium on gold in a few months fell from nearly 2 per cent. to a discount, and at Hamburg a like fall took place.  In London, the great silver market, silver rose, between the autumn and the new year, from five shillings per ounce to five shillings one and five-eighths pence per ounce, and Mexican dollars from four shillings ten and one-half pence to four shillings eleven and five-eighths pence per ounce; nor did prices recover until toward the end of the year 1851, when the fall was as sudden as the rise.”

In the spring of 1849 Reading crossed the Coast Range with a party of his Indians, and discovered rich diggings in the valley of the Trinity.  In the summer of the same year Colonel Fremont discovered the mines on his ranch, in the valley of the Mariposa.

(1849) RISE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC, Jessie White Mario

When “Young Italy,” the association of republican agitators led by Giuseppe Mazzini, began its activities (about 1834), hatred of the Austrian government, which ruled in several of the Italian States, was kept alive through this determined organization.  Aspirations for liberty and self-government were requickened.  The endeavors of the reforming Pope, Pius IX (1846), to harmonize his policy with the aims of this party, in order to promote a confederation of the Italian States under papal supremacy, at first seemed to promise the dawn of a new era.  Soon after the outbreak