but experience of what has been practised over and over again reminds us that the active parties on the present occasion are not calculating too largely upon the credulity of their countrymen.  That the country will be a pandemonium long before any one can reach it from this side is hardly to be doubted, unless, indeed, the United States government shall have been able to establish a blockade and cordon, in which case the new arrivals will have to get back as well as they can.

PROBABLE EFFECT ON THE CURRENCY IN EUROPE.—­In the description of gold mines, and rivers flowing over golden sands, we must be prepared for a little over-colouring.  Such discoveries have always excited sanguine hopes, and dreams of exhaustless wealth; but if the accounts—­and they really appear well authenticated—­of the golden treasures of California be true, quantities of the most precious of all metals are found—­not buried in mines, but scattered on the surface of the earth, and the fortunate adventurer may enrich himself beyond the dreams of avarice, almost without labour, without capital, and with no care but that which cupidity generates.  The principle that the value of the precious metals, like other products of industry, is determined primarily by the cost of production, and then by scarcity, ideas of utility, and convenience, seems to be neutralized by this new discovery; and it becomes a curious question, how far it may affect the value of gold and silver in Europe.  If the abundance of gold flowing from America be such as to exceed the demand, the value of gold will fall, and the price of all other commodities relatively rise, and the relative proportion between gold and silver be disturbed so as to affect the standards of value in each country and the par of exchange between one and another.  The productiveness of the silver mines, there is no doubt, is greater and more regular than those of gold; but the enormous increase of the silver currency on the Continent, in the United States, and even in India, and our own colonies, has kept the price of silver a little below five shillings an ounce.  On the other hand the English standard of value being gold only, the drain of gold is generally towards England, while that of silver is towards the Continent.  We do not doubt that the English Mint price of gold, L3 17s. 10-1/2d. an ounce, and the price at which the Bank of England are compelled to purchase, L3 17s. 9d. an ounce, are causes which not only regulate, but, within certain limits, determine, the price of gold throughout the world.  Suppose, for a moment, the circulation of England, exceeding thirty millions and the Bank store of fifteen millions, to be thrown on the markets of Europe, by an alteration of the standard of value—­how material would be the fall in price!  It is equally obvious that England would be first and most materially affected by any large and sudden production of her standard of value; for though America would be enriched by the