Silver and gold, step by step, often making little progress in a century, became the staple and dominant forms of money in the world, while copper and nickel still continued to be used for the smaller monetary pieces.

Every community has witnessed some stages of this evolution.

In this contest silver had proved itself a few centuries ago to be on the whole the fittest medium of exchange for most purposes, though gold was at the same time in use in larger transactions and in international trade.
Sec.5.

#Gold-using countries#.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century nations were divided, in accordance with the metals they used as standards, into two great groups, silver- and gold-using.