The disadvantage of the continual and rapid rise in value of gold and silver in Isle Pleasant, at length induced the inhabitants to use various substitutes for money which had an effect similar to that which would have been produced if additions had been made to the amount of coin in circulation: these substitutes for money tended to check the fall in prices and wages, and thus to make the value of money more uniform. The plan generally adopted was that of giving (when a purchase was made) a written promise to pay in money at the end of a certain time, instead of making the payment in cash at once. It may seem curious that these written promises to pay in gold and silver at the end of a short time could have had any effect as substitutes for money; since it may be thought that the payment in money was only temporarily deferred; but as a matter of fact these written promises to pay often had the effect of preventing the use of money in effecting exchanges altogether, and commodities in this way were exchanged for commodities without the transfer either of gold or silver, just as
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III.]
ISLE PLEASANT.
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