The museum's explanation of silver. Noticeably absent, although it was a brief display, was the importance of the silver mines of the New World. The Spanish owned them. And even France, with its vast resource wealth, had more "real assets" than England with her sheep and her pastures. So was it that by the time Issac Newton was done as the Master of the Mint in the Tower of London, all the world's gold and sliver flowed to London and England had both the most robust trade and the soundest currency in the world? Hmm...could their be a connection between a sound currency, free trade, and prosperity?