The Moon Metal | Page 2

every land fostered trade and facilitated the exchange of
products. Travellers never had to bother their heads about the currency
of money; any coin that passed in New York would pass for its face

value in London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Madrid, St. Petersburg,
Constantinople, Cairo, Khartoum, Jerusalem, Peking, or Yeddo. It was
indeed the "Golden Age," and the world had never been so free from
financial storms.
Upon this peaceful scene the south polar gold discoveries burst like an
unheralded tempest.
I happened to be in the company of a famous bank president when the
confirmation of those discoveries suddenly filled the streets with
yelling newsboys. "Get me one of those 'extras'!" he said, and an
office-boy ran out to obey him. As he perused the sheet his face
darkened.
"I'm afraid it's too true," he said, at length. "Yes, there seems to be no
getting around it. Gold is going to be as plentiful as iron. If there were
not such a flood of it, we might manage, but when they begin to make
trousers buttons out of the same metal that is now locked and guarded
in steel vaults, where will be our standard of worth? My dear fellow,"
he continued, impulsively laying his hand on my arm, "I would as
willingly face the end of the world as this that's coming!"
"You think it so bad, then?" I asked. "But most people will not agree
with you. They will regard it as very good news."
"How can it be good?" he burst out. "What have we got to take the
place of gold? Can we go back to the age of barter? Can we substitute
cattle-pens and wheat-bins for the strong boxes of the Treasury? Can
commerce exist with no common measure of exchange?"
"It does indeed look serious," I assented.
"Serious! I tell you, it is the deluge!"
Thereat he clapped on his hat and hurried across the street to the office
of another celebrated banker.
His premonitions of disaster turned out to be but too well grounded.

The deposits of gold at the south pole were richer than the wildest
reports had represented them. The shipments of the precious metal to
America and Europe soon became enormous--so enormous that the
metal was no longer precious. The price of gold dropped like a falling
stone, with accelerated velocity, and within a year every money centre
in the world had been swept by a panic. Gold was more common than
iron. Every government was compelled to demonetize it, for when once
gold had fallen into contempt it was less valuable in the eyes of the
public than stamped paper. For once the world had thoroughly learned
the lesson that too much of a good thing is worse than none of it.
Then somebody found a new use for gold by inventing a process by
which it could be hardened and tempered, assuming a wonderful
toughness and elasticity without losing its non-corrosive property, and
in this form it rapidly took the place of steel.
In the mean time every effort was made to bolster up credit. Endless
were the attempts to find a substitute for gold. The chemists sought it in
their laboratories and the mineralogists in the mountains and deserts.
Platinum might have served, but it, too, had become a drug in the
market through the discovery of immense deposits. Out of the twenty
odd elements which had been rarer and more valuable than gold, such
as uranium, gallium, etc., not one was found to answer the purpose. In
short, it was evident that since both gold and silver had become too
abundant to serve any longer for a money standard, the planet held no
metal suitable to take their place.
The entire monetary system of the world must be readjusted, but in the
readjustment it was certain to fall to pieces. In fact, it had already fallen
to pieces; the only recourse was to paper money, but whether this was
based upon agriculture or mining or manufacture, it gave varying
standards, not only among the different nations, but in successive years
in the same country. Exports and imports practically ceased. Credit was
discredited, commerce perished, and the world, at a bound, seemed to
have gone back, financially and industrially, to the dark ages.
One final effort was made. A great financial congress was assembled at
New York. Representatives of all the nations took part in it. The ablest

financiers of Europe and America united the efforts of their genius and
the results of their experience to solve the great problem. The various
governments all solemnly stipulated to abide by the decision of the
congress.
But, after spending months in hard but fruitless labor, that body was no
nearer the end of its undertaking than when it first assembled. The