REID'S TABLES OF EXCHANGE.
THIS is an indispensable book for those who deal in dollars. More than its price will quickly be saved by such luckless persons as have to visit the Colonies, the States, the West Indies, or any place where the difficulties of Value may be thoroughly appreciated without having ventured into Political Economy, and where the mysteries of " Currency," " Sterling," and the values of different dollars, are all so many modes by which the simple and unsuspicious are defrauded by a practical "action on the currency." All that the owner of Mr. RELD'S book has got to do is to imitate ARCHIMEDES and get a foundation ; his starting-point must be the proportion which the dollar or the rate of exchange bears to the English pound sterling. Thus provided, he is equal to the greatest " calculator " in "calculating" lands ; the Tables of Exchange of Sterling Money and of Dollars reduced into each other, embracing, we believe, all that can practically be required. The first set of tables takes 100/. as the standard, and exhibits, from id. to upwards of 10,0001., the proportion borne to its parts by dollars from 460 to 505 dollars per 100/., the gradation being by one dollar at a time. The second set of tables make dollars from 3s. 10d. to 4s. 4d. per dollar the standard, showing the proportion they bear to sterling from 1d. to any amount ; 10,833/. 6s 8d., for example, is 50,000 dollars at 48. 4d. per dollar. The third set of tables reduces dollars into sterling, at various rates of exchange of North American currency. An Appendix reduces to uniform standards the complex values of our American and West Indian Colonial currencies, old and new.
Although we have spoken of the work as indispensable to so- journers in other lands who like to take care of their pockets, it must be equally useful to persons at home practically engaged on Colonial or American accounts. They of course do not require to be guarded against any currency legerdemain ; but we should imagine it would facilitate their arithmetic, acting the part of inte- rest-tables or ready-reckoners.
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