xtant and
current in these every-day, commonplace times is at first sight utterly
incongruous and incredible, perhaps a little sacrilegious. Yet it is
evidently plausible. "The precious metals are indeed indestructible, as
Megilp has said," soliloquized Barwood. "They do not oxidize. The most
violent excesses of the elements have no effect upon them. If not still
extant, where then are the treasures of the ages?

"Buried under ground or in the ocean.

"What proportion of the whole has been thus disposed of?

"In the absence of statistics a definite amount cannot be stated, but
from the nature of the case it cannot be large. This form of wealth has
been too highly esteemed, too jealously guarded, and too rigorously
sought for when lost. In the wars and convulsions of society it has
changed hands but it could not be destroyed. Alexander and Tamerlane and
Timour the Tartar and Mahomet might overrun the world, burning and
destroying, and melting its more fragile riches like frost-work. But the
money of the vanquished was useful to the victor for his own purposes.
Rome took from Alexander, the barbarians from Rome, and modern
civilization from the barbarians. The waves of time roll over and engulf
all the monuments of men, all that gold and silver buy and sell, and, as
it were, create; but these irrepressible tokens themselves float and
glitter in the foam-crests upon those very billows. It cannot, then, be
doubted that the instruments and accompaniments of most of the pomp and
luxury, the war, treasons, and varied mercenary crimes of the world, are
still acting their part in it.

"And why not with the rest the fatal money which Judas cast down before
the chief priests in his remorse, going out to destroy himself?"

These were the reflections that recurred again and again to Barwood, and
possessed him with a strange fascination. All coins acquired a new and
intense interest. He saw in each the exponent of centuries of human
passions and activities. It is true that in a country like our own a
large part of the coinage is fresh from the mine. Yet his occasional
encounters with foreign, especially Mexican and Canadian pieces, and a
consideration of the immense sums received at the great ports of entry,
were, in his regard, sufficient to leaven the whole.

Is there anywhere in literature an account of the subsequent career of
the thirty pieces?

The Capitol library, one of the most complete collections in the world,
offe