Under existing law in the United States subsidiary-silver is coined only on Government account. This coinage is made from bullion purchased by the Government under the provisions of section 3526, Revised Statutes, and the profits on such coinage belong to the Government. There is at present (1909) no authority for the purchase of silver bullion for the coinage of standard silver dollars.

The total amount of silver bullion purchased under the act of July 14,1890, from August 13, 1890, the date the act went into effect, to November 1, 1893, the date of the repeal of the purchasing clause of that act, was 168,674,682.53 fine ounces of silver costing $155,931,-002.25.

There were coined from the bullion purchased under the act of July 14, 1890,187,027,345 standard silver dollars, of which $134,285,166 represent the cost of the bullion coined, and which were held in the Treasury for the redemption of Treasury notes of 1890, while the remainder, $52,742,179, constitutes the gain or seigniorage, and being the property of the United States, has been paid into the Treasury of the United States to be used as other available funds.

Under the acts of March 14,1900, and March 2,1903, there were coined to July 1,1905, from the silver bullion purchased under the act of July 14,1890, $33,118,576 in subsidiary silver coin of which $21,583,300 represent the cost of the bullion contained in such coinage and for which an equal amount of Treasury notes of 1890 were retired, and the balance, $11,535,276 seigniorage paid into the Treasury.

The seigniorage is an addition to the volume of money in the country, while the silver coin representing the cost of the bullion is not, since it is paid out only in redemption of the Treasury notes of 1890, whereupon the latter are canceled and retired, as prescribed by the acts of July 14, 1890, and March 14., 1900.

The total expenditure by the United States for silver bullion exclusive of subsidiary silver coinage, is:

Ihere have been coined from the bullion thus purchased standard silver dollars of the face value of $570,-272,610, and subsidiary silver coin of the face value of $33,118,576, consuming the entire amount of bullion purchased under the act of July 14, 1890.

The bullion value July 1, 1908 of the standard silver dollars coined was $238,843,936.

The space required for the storage of 1,000,000 standard silver dollars is 250 cubic feet. The standard silver dollars in the vaults of the Treasury and the several subtreasuries, June 80, 1904, amounting to about 462,-000,000, required 115,500 cubic feet of space.