EXCHANGE, the act of exchanging or giving one thing for another. The term also signifies that which is so given. In commerce it is applied to a place where merchants, brokers, etc., meet to transact business; it is generally contracted into 'Change. The institution of the modern exchange dates from the 16th century. Those institutions originated in the important trading cities of Italy, Germany and the Nether lands, from which last-named country they were introduced into England. The most celebrated are the Royal Exchange of London, the Bourses of Paris and Amsterdam, the B6rse of Ham burg and the New York Stock Exchange in Wall street. In some exchanges only a special class of business is transacted. Thus there are stock exchanges, corn exchanges, coal ex changes, cotton exchanges, etc. For Bill of Ex change, see BILL Course of exchange is the current price of a bill of exchange at any one place as compared with what it is at another. If for $500 at one place exactly $500 at the other must be paid, then the course of exchange between the two places is at par; if more must be paid at the second place, then it is above par at the other; if less, it is below it. Arbitration of exchange
signifies the operation of converting the cur rency of any country into that of a second one by means of other currencies intervening be tween the two. Consult Goschen's standard work, 'The Theory of Foreign Exchange'; and Withers, 'Money Changing) (1913).
In arithmetic exchange is a rule for ascer taining how much of the money of one country is equivalent in value to a given amount of that of another. In law, a mutual grant of equal interests, in consideration the one for the other, is tertned exchange. In physics the. theory of exchange is a hypothesis with regard to radi ant heat, devised by Prevost of Geneva, and since generally accepted. All bodies radiate heat If two of different temperaAures be placed near each other, each will radiate heat to the other, but the one higher in temperature will receive less than it emits. Finally, both will be of the same temperature, each receiving from the other precisely as much heat as it sends it in return. This scale is called the mobile equi librium of temperature.