But now that central banks no longer keep silver reserves, the metal's purchasing power is back where it was at the beginning of the 19th century.
Based on Mr. Huang's research, which included arranging for the analysis of rocks that fell off trucks leaving Silvercorp's Ying mine, Mr. Carnes questioned both the quality and the quantity of Silvercorp's silver reserves.
During the second half of the 17th century, colonialism was linked to mercantilism (based on establishing gold and silver reserves and a favourable trade balance) and, in the British and French possessions in particular, to sugar and coffee plantations using slave labour imported from West Africa.
Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Andrew Jackson and later William Jennings Bryan all opposed unsupported paper currency, and whenever their views caught on -- that is, whenever they persuaded people that the myth of a dollar was really a myth -- the results were, predictably, runs to recover silver reserves that existed only in fiction.
Silver Wheaton is based in British Columbia and has proved and probable silver reserves of roughly 275 million ounces.
A feasibility study of the mine found 15.2 million ounces of proved and probable silver reserves and 288,000 ounces of gold reserves.
Barrick also has the largest reserves of all gold miners with 138 million ounces of proven and probable gold reserves, more than 1 billion ounces of silver reserves, and more than 6 billion pounds of copper reserves.
When those silver reserves were depleted in 1904, the Mint ceased to strike the Morgan dollar.
A persistent shortage of coinage in all of the colonies prompted Massachusetts to establish a mint in 1652, and begin production of coins from its silver reserves.
The battle over the area's gold and silver reserves started in 1999, when the newly created Roșia Montană Gold Corporation, majority-owned by the Canadian company Gabriel Resources, announced it planned on extracting over 300 tons of gold and 1,500 tons of silver.
