In 1851 Moran had published in the local press some of his views in regard to the relative value of gold and silver, and the effects of the large influx of gold from new mines. In the 1860s he further developed these ideas in discussions at the meetings of the Society for the Advancement of Political and Social Science in New York City. This gradually assumed the form of a work, which is an attempt to analyze and discuss the subject of money, in its most important, practical phases. Moran wanted to describe this subject more fully than has been done in any of the works that have, and explain and reconcile all the anomalies that, heretofore, have rendered money so vexed a subject.
