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ἘΞ ἈΝΆΓΚΗϹ Ἠ ΤΟΫ ΝΟΜΊϹΜΑΤΟϹ ἘΠΟΡΊϹΘΗ ΧΡΗϹΙϹ.

Aristotle.

Let us here propound the doctrine which seeks to obtain an explanation of the origin for weight-standards more in accordance with the facts of history and the process of development as exemplified both in ancient and modern times.

In early communities[17] all commodities alike are exchanged by bartering the one against the other. The man who possesses sheep exchanges them for oxen with the man who possesses oxen, the owner of corn exchanges his commodity for some implement or ornament of metal with the owner of the latter. The metals are only regarded as merchandise, not yet being in any degree set apart to serve as a medium of exchange in the terms of which all other commodities are valued. This is the practice which prevails in so civilized a country as China down to our own days. The only coinage which the Chinese possess is copper cash. According to M. le Comte Rochechouart (Journal des Économistes, Vol. XV. p. 103) both gold and silver are treated simply as merchandise, and there is not even a recognized stamp or government guarantee of the fineness of the metal. The traveller must carry these metals with him, as a sufficient quantity of strings of cash would require a waggon for their conveyance. Yet in exchanging silver or gold he is sure to suffer loss both from the falsity of balances and of weights and the uncertain fineness of the metal.

When in a certain community one particular kind of commodity is of general use and generally available, this comes to form the unit in terms of which all values are expressed. The nature of this barter-unit will depend upon the nature of the climate and geographical position, and likewise upon the stage of culture to which the people have attained. In the hunting stage, all the property of each individual consists in his weapons and implements of war and the chase, and the skins of wild beasts which form his clothing, and sometimes the cover of his hut or wigwam. At a later stage, when he has succeeded in taming the ox, the sheep, or the goat, or the horse, he is the owner of property in domestic animals, whose flesh and milk sustain him and his family, and whose skins and wool provide his clothing.

By this time too he has found out that it is better to make the captive whom he has taken in war into a hewer of wood and drawer of water than merely to obtain some transient pleasure from eating him after putting him to death by torture, or by wearing his skull or scalp as personal decorations.

This is now the pastoral or nomad stage.

Next comes the more settled form of life, when the cultivation of land and the production of the various kinds of cereals renders a permanent dwelling-place more or less necessary.

Property now consists not merely in slaves and domestic animals, but likewise in houses of improved construction, and large stores of grain. Man now possesses certain of the metals, gold and copper being the first to be known. How does he appraise these metals when he exchanges them with his neighbour? We shall find that he estimates them in terms of cattle, and that he at first barters them all by measures based on the parts of the human body, a method which continues to be employed for copper and iron long after the art of weighing has been invented; next he estimates his gold by certain natural units of capacity such as a goosequill, and finally fixes the amount of gold which is equivalent to a cow, by setting it in a rude balance against a certain number of natural seeds of plants. Such is the process which history tells us has taken place in the temperate regions of Asia and Europe, Africa and America. Just as it is impossible to learn the history of the growth of the earth’s crust by confining our observations to one locality, and as the geologist only succeeds in gaining a true insight into the relations between the various strata by a study of the phenomena of many regions, so we shall only be able to comprehend properly the various stages in the growth of metallic currency and the origin of weight-standards by observing the facts revealed to us in various countries. Whilst in some places we shall meet with but one or two steps, in others we shall find traces of many, though often, broken strata. Like advance, however, seems impossible under the extremes of heat and cold. Hence in the latter regions the conditions of life remain almost unaltered. In the extreme north the rigour of an arctic winter forbids the keeping and rearing of domestic animals, or the cultivation of corn and vegetables. Hence the hunter form of existence remains almost unaltered. The sole or chief wealth of the people consists of the skins of the fur-bearing animals such as the seal, the beaver, the marten, or the fox, or stores of dried fish, which they exchange with traders for a few scant luxuries, or which form their own sustenance and protection against the pitiless frosts and snows.

In these regions therefore we find the skins of certain animals serving as units of account, in spite of the difference in value between those of different quality and rarity. In the Territory of the Hudson’s Bay Company, even after the use of coined money had been introduced among the Indians, the skin was still in common use as the money of account. A gun nominally worth forty shillings brought twenty ‘skins.’ This term is the old one used by the Company. One skin (beaver) is supposed to be worth two shillings, and it represents two martens and so on. “You heard a great deal about skins at Fort Yukon, as the workmen were also charged for clothing, etc., in this way[18].” Similarly in the extreme north of Asia we find some Ostiak tribes using the skin of the Siberian squirrel as their unit of account.

The name of a small coin equal to a quarter kopeck indicates that originally the Slavs had a like form of currency. It is called polooshka. Ooshka (properly little ears) means a hare-skin, and polooshka means half a hare-skin[19].

Fig. 1. Cowrie Shell (Cypraea moneta).

When we turn to the torrid zone, where clothes are only an incumbrance and Nature lavishly supplies plenteous stores of fruits and vegetables, the chief objects of desire will not be food and clothing but ornaments, implements and weapons. Hence we find amongst the inhabitants of such regions in especial strength that passion for personal adornment, which is one of the most powerful and primitive instincts of the human race. Shells have from very remote times formed one of the most simple forms of adornment in all parts of the world. Shells which once perhaps formed the necklace of some beauty of the neolithic age are found with the remains of the cave men of Auvergne. Strings of cowries under their various names of changos, zimbis, bonges or porcelain shells are both durable, universally esteemed, and portable, and therefore suited to form a medium of exchange, and as such they are employed in the East Indies, Siam, and on the East and West Coasts of Africa; on the tropical coasts they serve the purposes of small change, being collected on the shores of the Maldive and Laccadive islands and exported for that object. The relative value varies slightly according to their abundance or scarcity. In India the usual ratio was about 5000 to the rupee. Marco Polo found the cowry in use in the province of Yunnam. He says (II. p. 62, Yule’s Transl.): “In Carajan gold is so abundant that they give one Saggio of gold for six of the same weight of silver. And for small change they use the porcelain shell. These are not found in the country but are brought from India.” How ancient is their use in Asia is shown by the fact that Layard found cowries in the ruins of Nineveh.

Fig. 2. Wampum (made from the Venus mercenaria).

Beyond all doubt the wampum belts of the North American Indians served the purpose of currency. They consisted of black and white shells rubbed down, polished and made into beads, and then strung into belts or necklaces, which were valued according to their length, colour and lustre, the black beads being the most valuable. Thus one foot of black peag was worth two feet of white peag. It was so well established as a currency among the natives that in 1649 the Court of Massachusetts ordered that it should be received as legal tender among the settlers in the payment of debts up to forty shillings[20].

Fig. 3. Al-li-ko-chik.

Nor has this employment of strings of shells as money even yet disappeared from North America. Thus Powers writes[21] of the Karoks and other tribes of California: “For money they make use of the red scalps of woodpeckers, which rate at $2.50 to $5.0 a piece, and of the dentalium shell, of which they grind off the tip, and string it on strings, the shortest pieces are worth 25 cents, and the longest about two dollars, the value rising rapidly with the length. The strings are usually about as long as a man’s arm. It is called al-li-ko-chik (in Yarok this signifies literally Indian money) not only on the Klamath but from Crescent city to Eel river, though the tribes using it speak several different languages. When the Americans first arrived in the country an Indian would give 40 or 50 dollars gold for a string, but now the abundance of the supply has depreciated its value and it is principally the old Indians who esteem it.” Again he writes, “Some of the young bloods array their Dulcineas for the dance with lavish adornments, hanging on their dress 30, 40 or 50 dollars worth of dimes, quarter dollars and half dollars arranged in strings.” This shows that the new currency of silver is treated by them in exactly the same way as the old shell strings, both of them deriving their value as media of exchange from the fact that they are the objects most universally prized as ornaments for the person.

Elsewhere the same writer observes: “Immense quantities of it (shell money) were formerly in circulation among the Californian Indians, and the manufacture of it was large and constant to replace the continual wastage caused by the sacrifice of so much on the death of wealthy men, and by the propitiatory sacrifices performed by many tribes, especially those of the coast range. From my own observations, which have not been limited, and from the statements of pioneers and of the Indians themselves, I hesitate little to express the belief that every Indian in the state in early days possessed an average of at least 100 dollars worth of shell money. This would represent the value of almost two women (though the Nishinam never actually bought their wives), or two grizzly bear skins, or 25 cinnamon bear skins or about three average ponies. The young English-speaking Indians hardly use it at all except in a few dealings with their elders or for gambling. One sometimes lays away a few strings of it for he knows he cannot squander it at the stores. It is singular how old Indians cling to this currency when they know it will purchase nothing for them at the stores; but then their wants are few, and mostly supplied from the sources of nature, and besides that the money has a certain religious value in their eyes, as being alone worthy to be offered up on the funeral pile of departed friends or famous chiefs of their tribes[22].”

Here we see how amongst the Indian tribes there was a fully developed system of inter-relations between the various objects which formed their wealth.

The horse was but a new comer into America, but he had his place soon allotted in the scale of values, being little less valuable than a squaw. We cannot doubt that if the Indian had succeeded in domesticating the buffalo before the advent of the white man, it would have formed the most general unit in use, as we shall find its congeners being employed in all parts of the old world. But before the coming of the Spaniards at least one race of North America had advanced a stage beyond shell money. The Aztecs[23] of Mexico were employing a currency of gold and cacao seeds. The former in the shape of dust was placed in goose quills, which formed a natural unit of capacity, for weights were as yet unknown to the Aztecs; whilst the cacao seeds were placed in bags, each containing a specified number.

In Queen Charlotte Islands the dentalium shell was recognized as a medium of exchange by most of the coast tribes, but not so much as a medium of exchange for themselves as for barter with the Indians of the interior. With the Haidas it is still sometimes worn as an ornament though it has disappeared as a medium of exchange. The blanket of the trader has now however supplanted the skin as the principal unit. Not only among the Haidas but all along the coast it takes the place of the beaver-skin currency of the interior of British Columbia and of the North West Territory. The blankets used in trade are distinguished by the points or marks on the edge, woven into their texture, the best being four-point, the smallest and poorest one-point. The acknowledged unit of trade is a single two and a half-point blanket, now worth a little over $1.50. Everything is referred to this unit, even a large four-point blanket is said to be worth so many blankets. There is also the “Copper,” “an article of purely conventional value and serving as money. This is a piece of native metal beaten out into a flat sheet and made to take a peculiar shape. These are not made by the Haidas—nor indeed is the native metal known to exist in the islands, but are imported as articles of great worth from the Chilcat country north of Sitka. Much attention is paid to the size and make of the copper, which should be of uniform but not too great thickness, and should give forth a good sound when struck with the hand. At the present time spurious coppers have come into circulation, and although these are easily detected by an expert, the value of the copper is somewhat reduced and is often more nominal than real. Formerly ten slaves were paid for a good copper as a usual price, now they are valued at from forty to eighty blankets”.[24] It is obvious that such costly imported articles, though now used as occasional higher units of account—much as we employ fifty-pound notes—must have had some definite use, owing to which they were so highly prized. The attention paid to their tone would lead us to conjecture that they were employed as a kind of gong, and further on we shall find certain peoples of Further Asia paying a large price in buffaloes for gongs.

Before we quit finally the northern latitudes, it is worth our while to observe the method of currency employed by the Icelanders. As metals and other products of the land were scarce in their bleak home, the stockfish (dried cod) formed naturally their chief commodity, and hence it appears on the arms of Denmark as the emblem of Iceland. There is still extant a proclamation for the regulation of English trade with Iceland issued sometime between 1413 and 1426. As, mutatis mutandis, it affords admirable insight into the methods by which trade was carried on between men of different nations in the emporia of the Mediterranean, and in fact everywhere else, it is worth giving it in extenso[25].

“I, N. M. do proclaim here to-day a general market between the English and the Icelandic men, who have come here with peace and fair dealing, and between the Icelandic men and the men of the islands who wish to carry on their trade here.

“First I proclaim this market on conditions of peace and lawful security between one and the other, so that each can entirely dispose of his own if he buy or if he sell. Price list in stockfish: of fish 2, 2½, or 1¾ lbs., 80 lbs. must be the equivalent of a hundred (of cloth, i.e. 129 alens of vadme, a cloth formerly used as a medium of exchange), provided the persons concerned cannot agree as to the price.

Price of (foreign) goods.	Stockfish.
48	alen of good and full width trade cloth	120
48	alen linen cloth double width	120
6	tonder (tuns) malt	120
4	do. trade flour	120
3	do. wheat	120
4	do. beer	120
1	tonde clean and clear butter	120
1	do. wine	100
1	do. pitch	80
1	do. raw tar	60
1	cask of iron, containing 400 pieces	120
⅛	tonde honey	15
⅛	do. blubber	15
½	lb. of coppers (i.e. copper cauldrons) by weight	2½
1	pair black (leather) shoes	4
1	pair of women’s shoes	3
1	trade rug	30
1	“alen” timber, in planks or spars	5
⅛	tonde salt	5
½	lb. wax	5
Horse shoes of iron for 5 horses	20
Caps, knives, and other small mercer’s wares, according to mutual agreement.

“I charge all, not only the people from the country, but also the inhabitants of these islands, that ye do in no way compass any disorder or disturbance to the strangers, from the moment the guard flag is hoisted, unless they themselves allow it.

“They, who here are annoyed by word or deed, have a right to demand double indemnity therefor.

“Also I charge, and the merchants in no way the least, that they use aright the “alen” and other lawful measure for everything, as the law demands, especially as regards butter, wine and beer, flour or malt, honey or tar, so that no one deals false or with deceit with another.

“He who does so intentionally shall have sinned as greatly against the state as if he had stolen goods of like value, whereas the bargain becomes void, and damages moreover must be given to him who was deceived.

“Let us now, Ye good men, eschew all malice and trickery, riot or disturbance, quarrels and careless words: but let every man be the other’s friend, without deceit.

“Prizing unity

And old custom,

And abiding in God’s peace.”

Some such proclamations were probably often made in the marts of the Aegean, such as Aegina, when Greek, Phoenician and Etruscan met for traffic under the control of some local potentate, and the protection of the god of some neighbouring shrine.

Passing to the islands of the Pacific we shall find shell money playing an important part among the primitive peoples, such as those who inhabit New Ireland, New Britain, the Pelew and the Caroline groups. It will suffice for our purpose to describe the form in which it is employed in New Britain. Mr Powell[26] tells us that the native money in New Britain consists of small cowrie shells strung on strips of cane, in Duke of York Island it is called Dewarra. It is measured in lengths, the first length being from hand to hand across the chest with arms extended, second length from the centre of the breast to the hand of one arm extended, the third from the shoulder to the tip of the fingers along the arm, fourth from the elbow to the tip of the fingers, fifth from the wrist to the tip of the fingers, sixth finger lengths. Fish are generally bought by the length in Dewarra unless they are too small. A large pig will cost from 30 to 40 lengths of the first measure (fathom) and a small one ten. The Dewarra is made up for convenience in coils of 100 fathoms or first lengths; sometimes as many as 600 fathoms are coiled together, but not often, as it would be too bulky to remove quickly in case of invasion or war, when the women carry it away to hide. These coils are very neatly covered with wickerwork like the bottom of our cane chairs.... At Moko and Utuan they use another kind of money as well as this, the other being a little bivalve shell, through which they bore a hole and string it on pieces of native made twine[27]. It is also chipped all round until it is a quarter of an inch in diameter and then smoothed down into even discs with sand and pumice. Here we find strings of shells, which undoubtedly in the first instance were used for personal adornment, converted into a true currency. The simple savages whose possessions were exceedingly few and scanty, equated their fish to strings of shells which formed their only ornament, and when they got a more valuable possession in the pig, they quickly learned to appraise that animal in shell worth, just as the North American Indians learned to estimate the horse in Wampum. Instead of shells the natives of Fiji are said to have employed whales’ teeth as currency, red teeth (which are still highly prized) standing to white ones somewhat in the ratio of sovereigns to shillings with us[28]. Passing on to the mainland of Asia we shall find that the Chinese, who in the course of ages have developed a bronze coinage of their own apart from the influences of the Mediterranean people, had in early times an elaborate system of shell money. Cowries appear in the Ya-King, the oldest Chinese book, 100,000 dead shell fishes being an equivalent for riches. Tortoise shell currency is also mentioned in the same book. The tortoise of various kinds and sizes was used for the greater values which would have required too many cowries. Tortoise shell is still elegantly used to express coin. Several kinds of Cypraea were used, including the purple shell, two or three inches long; all the shells except the small ones were employed in pairs. A writer of the second century B.C.[29] speaks of the purple shell as ranking next after the sea tortoise shells, measuring one foot six inches, which could only be procured in Cochin China and Annam, where they were used to make pots, basins and other valuable objects. So attached were the Chinese to these primitive coins that the usurper Wangmang restored a shell currency of five kinds, tortoise shell being the highest. From this time we hear no more of cowries in China Proper, but they left traces of themselves in the small copper coins shaped like a small Cypraea, called Dragon’s eye or Ant coins[30]. It is doubtless to a similar survival that we owe those curious silver coins made in the shape of shells which come from the north of Burmah and of which there are several specimens in the British Museum. They are about the size of a cowrie, and doubtless served as a higher unit in a currency, of which the lower units were formed by real shells.

Fig. 4. Burmese silver shell money.

In 685 B.C. in parts of China pearls and gems, gold, knives and cloth were the money, and under the Shou dynasty (1100 B.C.) we understand from ancient Commentaries that the gold circulated in little cubes of a square inch, and the copper in round, tongue-like plates by the tchin tchu, while the silk cloth 2 feet 2 inches wide in rolls of 40 feet formed a piece.

In the Shu King, when in 947 B.C. commutation for punishment was enacted, the culprit according to the offence was to pay 100, 200, 500 or 1000 hwars, or rings of copper weighing 6 ounces. The Chinese likewise used hoes as money, just as we shall find the wild people of Annam doing at the present hour. But in the course of time the hoe became a true currency and little hoes, such as that here figured, were employed as coins in some parts of China (tsin, agricultural implements). The copper knives which played so important a part in the development of Chinese coinage will be dealt with more particularly in a later chapter. In Marco Polo’s time cowries were in full use, as in the province of Yunnan[31].

Fig. 5. Chinese hoe money.

On the borders of China and Tibet we may still find a state of things not far removed from that existing in the China of 2000 years ago[32]. The Tibetans, who in recent years employ Indian rupees, for purposes of small change cut up these coins into little pieces, which are weighed by the careful Chinese, but the Tibetans do not seem to use the scale, and roughly judge of the value of a piece of silver. Tea, moreover, and beads of turquoise are largely used as a means of payment instead of metal.

Speaking of this same region (called by him Kandu), Polo says[33]: “The money-matters of the people are conducted in this way: they have gold in rods which they weigh, and they reckon its value by its weight in saggi, but they have no coined money. Their small change again is made in this way: they have salt which they boil and set in a mould, and every piece from the mould weighs half-a-pound. Now eighty moulds of this salt are worth one saggio of fine gold.” Tea seems to have taken the place of salt in modern times.

Turning next to the southern frontier of China, we shall find among the tribes of Annam a system of currency which strongly reminds us of that found in the Homeric Poems.

Among the Bahnars of Annam who border on Laos, “everything,” says that excellent observer M. Aymonier, “is by barter, hence all objects of general use have a known relationship: if we know the unit, all the rest is easy. Here is the key: a head, that is to say, a male slave is worth six or seven buffaloes, or the same number of pots (marmites; so in Homer, Il. XXXIII. 885, an ox is estimated at a kettle); the buffalo and the pot have the same value, which naturally varies with the size and age of the animal and the size and quality of the pot.

“A full-grown buffalo or a large pot is worth seven earthenware jars of a grey glaze, after the Chinese shape, and with a capacity of fifteen litres. One jar = 4 muk. (The muk[34] is an unit of account, but originally meant some special article.) 1 muk = 10 mats, that is to say ten of these hoes, which are manufactured by the Cédans, and which are employed by all the savages of this region as their agricultural implement. The hoe is the smallest amount used by the Bahnars. It is worth 10 centimes in European goods, and is made of iron[35].” Thus the buffalo is worth 280 hoes, or a little more than an English sovereign, since each hoe is worth a penny (10 centimes). The Bahnars have sheet tin ½ millim. thick cut into pieces 11 centim. square, to be used to ornament sword-belts or to make earrings (iv. p. 390). A stick of virgin wax the size of an ordinary candle = 1 hoe, a pretty little cane hat = 2 hoes; a large bamboo hat = 2 hoes; a Bahnar knife = 2 hoes; a fine sword and sheath = 1 jar, 1 muk, 3 hoes; a crossbow and string = 3 hoes; ordinary arrows are sold at 30 for 1 hoe; arrows with movable heads, 20 for 1 hoe, and poisoned arrows 5 for 1 hoe; a lance-head = 3 hoes; a lance with palm handle = 4 hoes; a horse = 3 or 4 pots or buffaloes; a large elephant = 10 to 15 heads (slaves).

The same method of using the buffalo as the chief unit is employed by the Moïs, among whom a slave is reckoned at 10 buffaloes. Again, among tribes such as the Tjams, with whom the string of copper cash (or sapecs) borrowed from the Chinese, is employed as their lowest unit, a full-grown buffalo = 100 strings;[36] the Mexican piastre or dollar circulates freely as in China, a small pig costs 10 strings, pork by retail costs two strings per lb. (livre), ducks cost 1½ to 2 strings. A large caldron costs 3 buffaloes; a handsome gong = 2 buffaloes; a small gong = 1 buffalo; 6 copper platters = 1 buffalo; two swords = 1 buffalo; 2 lances = 1 buffalo; a rhinoceros’ horn = 8 buffaloes; a pair of large elephants’ tusks = 6 buffaloes; a small pair = 3 buffaloes. When the wild people have dealings with the more civilized peoples of the plain, who employ the Chinese cash and silver dollars, a large buffalo = 100 strings of cash, a small one = 50 strings; a fine horse = 100 strings; a she goat = a piece of cloth. The Orang Glaï have often to buy elephants’ tusks, at the rate of 8 buffaloes for a pair, or 8 bars of silver (640 francs). The Szins of Kharang have often to pay a tax of a buffalo per hut, or for the whole village 10 buffaloes, the horns of which must be at least as long as their ears[37]. In Cambodia iron ingots[38] form a special kind of money. These ingots are not weighed, but they are as long as from the base of the thumb to the tip of the forefinger; they are in breadth two fingers, and one finger in thickness in the middle, tapering off to either end.

Cowries and other shells seem to have gone out of use altogether among these tribes, but we may recognize in the practice of reckoning the cash by the string a distinct survival of the olden time when shells were so employed. It is of great importance to note that where silver has come into use, its unit, the bar, is equated to the buffalo, the unit of barter, just as we find the Homeric gold Talent equal to the ox.

Next let us turn to India, and to the Aryans of the Rig Veda, who dwelt in the north-west of the Punjaub at the time when we first meet them. From their prayers and invocations it is easy to learn in what the wealth of this simple folk consisted. One or two examples will serve for our purpose: “The potent ones who bestow on us good fortune by means of cows, horses, goods, gold, O Indra and Vaya, may they, blessed with fortune, ever be successful by means of horses and heroes in battle[39].” Again, “O Indra bring us rice cake, a thousand soma drinks, and an hundred cows, O hero. Bring us apparel, cows, horses and jewels, along with a mana of gold.” Yet once more: “Ten horses, ten caskets, ten garments, ten gold nuggets (hiranya pindas) I received from Divodāsa. Ten chariots equipped with side horses, and an hundred cows gave the Açvatha to the Atharvans and to the Pāyu.” Even without further evidence than that which we have already drawn from the wild people of Annam, we might well assume that there were definitely fixed relations in value between the cows, horses, gold, rice, and cloth of the Vedic people. But absolute proof is at hand, for their close kinsmen, the ancient Persians, have left us in the Zend Avesta ample means of observing their monetary system. Thus we read in the ordinances which fix the payment of the physician that “he shall heal the priest for the holy blessing; he shall heal the master of an house for the value of an ox of low value; he shall heal the lord of a borough for the value of an ox of average value; he shall heal the lord of a town for the value of an ox of high value; he shall heal the lord of a province for the value of a chariot and four; he shall heal the wife of the master of a house for the value of a she ass; he shall heal the wife of the master of a borough for the value of a cow; he shall heal the wife of the lord of a town for the value of a mare; he shall heal the wife of the lord of a province for the value of a she camel; he shall heal the son of the lord of a borough for the value of an ox of high value: he shall heal an ox of high value for the value of an ox of average value; he shall heal an ox of average value for the value of an ox of low value; he shall heal an ox of low value for the value of a sheep; and he shall heal a sheep for the value of a meal of meat[40].” So too in the fees of the Cleanser we read: “Thou shalt cleanse a priest for a blessing; the lord of a province for the value of a camel of high value; the lord of a town for the value of a stallion; the lord of a borough for the value of a bull; the master of an house for the value of a cow three years old; the wife of the master of an house for the value of a ploughing cow; a menial for the value of a draught cow; a young child for the value of a lamb[41].” Again in the chapter on Contracts: “The third is the contract to the amount of a sheep, the fourth is the contract to the amount of an ox, the fifth is the contract to the amount of a man (human being), the sixth is the contract to the amount of a field, a field in good land, a fruitful one in good bearing[42].”

From these extracts it is plain that the ancient Persians had a system of clearly defined relations in value between all their worldly gear, whether the object was a slave or an ox, or a lamb or a field, precisely like that existing at the present moment among the hill tribes of Annam. But not simply was it between one kind of animal and another, but they had evidently strict notions as regards the inter-relations in value of different animals of the same kind; thus the ox of high value, the ox of low value, the cow of three years old, or the bull all stood to one another in a fixed relationship. We may without hesitation conclude that the same system of conventional values prevailed among the ancient Hindus. Nor can we doubt that articles of every kind, such as arrows, spears, axes, and articles of personal use and adornment all had their regularly recognized prices, and that the less valuable of them were used as small change. Gold, no doubt, occupied an important place in relation to the other forms of property in portions of fixed size or weight, as in the days of Marco Polo. In mediaeval times in parts of India money consisted of pieces of iron worked into the form of large needles, and in some parts stones which we call cat’s eyes, and in others pieces of gold worked to a certain weight were used for moneys, as we are told by Nicolo Conti, who travelled in India in the 15th century[43]. If iron was so employed at this late date we may well infer that bronze and afterwards iron were probably so used by the ancient Indo-Iranian people.

Fig. 6. Fish-hook money (Larina).

Fig. 7. Siamese silver bullet money: A. B. Early form as simple piece of wire. C. Last stage of degradation.

Among the fishermen who dwelt along the shores of the Indian Ocean, from the Persian Gulf to the southern shores of Hindustan, Ceylon and the Maldive islands, it would appear that the fish-hook, to them the most important of all implements, passed as currency. In the course of time it became a true money, just as did the hoe in China. It still for a time retained its ancient form, but gradually became degraded into a simple piece of double wire, as seen in Nos. 3 and 4 of our illustration. In its conventional form it is known as a larin or lari, a name doubtless derived from Lari on the Persian Gulf. These larins made both of silver and bronze were in use until the beginning of the last century, and bear legends in Arabic character. Had the process of degradation gone on without check, in course of time the double wire would probably have shrunk up into a bullet-shaped mass of metal, just as the Siamese silver coins are the outcome of a process of degradation from a piece of silver wire twisted into the form of a ring and doubled up, which probably originally formed some kind of ornament. The bullet-shaped tical is now struck as a coin of European form. Just as perhaps the silver shells of Burmah became the multiple unit of a large number of real cowries, so the fish-hook made of silver came into use as a multiple unit, when the bronze fish-hook had already become conventionalized into a true coin. The silver larins of Ceylon weigh about 170 grs. troy, and those of Southern India are said by Professor Wilson to weigh the same, although some of them weigh only 76 grs. or less than half. As the rupee weighs about 180 grs. the silver fish-hook may represent the usual unit employed for silver, strong national conservatism requiring that the silver currency should take the same form as the ancient fish-hook currency of bronze[44]. There are still in circulation in Nejd in Arabia small bars of silvered brass, which bear on the back Arabic inscriptions. It is hardly possible to doubt that in these little pieces of metal we have the last surviving descendants of the old fish-hook. In the Maldive Isles a silver larin was worth 12,000 cowries.

Fig. 8. Silvered brass bars used as money in Nejd[45].

Advancing westward we find the Ossetes of the Caucasus at the present moment employ the cow as their unit of value, the prices of all commodities being stated as one, two, three or four cows, or even at one-tenth or one-hundredth of the value of a cow. The ox is worth two cows, and the cow is worth ten sheep. This people regulate compensation for wounds thus: they measure the length of the wound in barley corns, and for every barley corn which it measures a cow has to be paid[46]. We can have little doubt that over all Hither Asia the same method of employing the cow as the principal unit of value obtained. It is that which we found among the Greeks of the Homeric Poems, who were in full contact with Northern Asia Minor, and was almost certainly that of the Semites who dwelt in the South. Just as we find the buffalo, and the pots, bronze platters, arrows, lances and hoes standing side by side in well defined mutual relation among the Bahnars of Cochin China, so we find in Homer that whilst the cow is the principal unit, the slave is employed as an occasional higher unit, and the kettle (lebes), the pot (tripous), the axe and the half axe, hides, raw copper and pig iron stand beside the cow as multiples or sub-multiples. When Ajax and Idomeneus make a bet on the issue of the chariot race, the proposed wager is a pot or a kettle[47], whilst from another passage we learn that the usual prizes given at the funeral games of a chieftain were female slaves and pots (Tripods).

Passing from Greece into Italy we have no difficulty in proving that the cow was the regular unit of value in that peninsula and the adjacent island of Sicily. Down to 451 B.C. all fines at Rome were paid in cows and sheep. By the Tarpeian Law these were commuted for payments in copper, each cow being set at 100 asses, each sheep at 10 asses. As I shall deal with the whole question of the Roman As at considerable length later on I shall here simply note that the Italian tribes had evidently the same system of adjusting the relations between their cattle and sheep and their metals which we found among the Persians and modern Ossetes. In Sicily it is clear that the cow had played the same part as elsewhere, for we learn from Aristotle[48] that when the tyrant Dionysius burdened the Syracusans by excessive taxation, they ceased in a great degree to keep cattle, inasmuch as the unit of assessment was the cow. If then in the 4th century B.C. at Syracuse, the most advanced community in Sicily, the cow still continued to be the unit of assessment, à fortiori, at an earlier period that animal must have been the monetary unit of the whole island.

From the Italians we pass on to their close kinsmen the Kelts. We are told by Polybius[49] that when the Gauls entered Italy, their wealth consisted of their cattle and gold ornaments, but although an argument will be offered below to show that the cow was the monetary unit of both Gauls and Germans, we have no definite evidence respecting the barter system. But fortunately the Ancient Laws of Wales and Ireland afford us ample insight into the Keltic system. Irish tradition goes back far beyond the date at which the Brehon Laws were compiled, and from it we get a glimpse of a system almost Homeric: thus we read in the Annals of the Four Masters under the year 106 A.D. that the tribute (Boroimhe, literally cow-tax) paid by the King of Leinster consisted in 150 cows, 150 swine, 150 couples of men and women in servitude, 150 girls and the king’s daughter in like servitude, 150 caldrons, with two passing large ones of the breadth and depth of five fists[50]. As this tradition makes no mention of payment in metals, but only of slaves, cattle and caldrons, which doubtless stood to one another in well defined relations, we need have no hesitation in assuming that the cow formed the chief unit of the earlier, as it did of the later Kelts.

The Welsh naturally adopted the monetary system which sprang up after the reign of Constantine the Great in the Later Empire. Accordingly we find in certain of their Ancient Laws[51] tables giving in denarii, solidi or librae the values of various kinds of property. From these we can learn with accuracy the relations in value which existed between various kinds of property. Thus the calf from March (when the cows calved) to November was worth 6 denarii, to the following February 8 den., till May 10 den., till August of the second year 12, till November 14 den., till February 15 den., till February of the third year 28 den. The heifer is then in calf, her milk is worth 16 den. Thus the milch cow is worth 46 den., and up to August she is worth 48 den., up to November 50 den., and up to May of the fourth year is worth 60 den. A month’s milk is worth 4 den.; a bull calf 6 den., the young ox when put to the plough is worth 28 den., when he can plough, 48 den., that is the same as the young milch cow of the same age; a gelding is worth 80 den., a farmer’s mare 60 den., a trained horse is worth half a libra; a bow with twelve arrows is worth 7 denarii and an obolus; a queen bee (modred af) is worth 24 den., the first swarm 16 den., the second 12, the third 8; a foal is worth 18 den. to 24 den., a two year old 48 den., a three year old 96 den. A young male slave (iuvenis captivus) is worth 1 libra, a slave both young and of large stature (captivus iuvenis et magnus) is worth 1½ libra. It would appear that the Welsh, when taking over the Roman system, had adjusted their own highest barter-unit, the slave (probably female as well as male), to the libra or pound, the highest unit in the Roman system. Of course slaves of exceptional strength or beauty would always command a higher price. But the regulations for the value of cattle are especially of interest, as shewing the extraordinary minuteness with which pastoral peoples discriminate the values of animals of different ages, and estimate the milk of a cow in proportion to her actual value. The full-grown cow is worth exactly ten times the newborn calf, an estimate which holds good just as much in 1890 as it did 1000 years ago, for it is not a mere convention but is based upon a natural law. At the present moment a calf is worth from 30 to 35 shillings, a cow from £15 to £17. 10s. The yearling calf was worth one-sixth of the full-grown cow, a relation which still holds good.

The Irish Kelts borrowed their silver system from Rome at a period probably before Constantine, as they seem never to have employed the libra and solidus, but simply the uncia (unga) and scripulus (screapall), adding thereto a subdivision called the pinginn or penny, borrowed doubtless from the Saxon invader at a later period. Thus 1 unga = 24 screapalls; 1 screapall = 3 pinginns. They equated the principal silver unit, the uncia, to the old chief barter-unit, the cow (bo). As elsewhere, however, the slave formed occasionally the highest unit, and was reckoned nominally at three cows. The slave woman (cumhal, ancilla in Latin writers) was in course of time used as a mere unit of account.

Slave woman (cumhal, ancilla)	=	3 ounces (unga)
Full-grown cow (bo mor)	=	1 ounce = 24 screapalls
Heifer now in third year (samhaisc)	=	½ ounce = 12 screapalls
Heifer of second year (colpach)	=	6 screapalls
Yearling (dairt)	=	4 screapalls
A cow’s milk for summer and harvest	=	6 screapalls
A sheep	=	3 screapalls
A goat’s milk for summer and harvest	=	1¾ pinginn
A sheep’s fleece	=	1½ pinginn
A sheep’s milk	=	½ pinginn
A kid (meinnan)[52]	=	⅔ pinginn.

Here again the yearling is worth one-sixth of the cow. Gold was abundant among the ancient Irish, (almost certainly obtained in large quantities from the Wicklow mountains,) and passed from hand to hand in the form of rings, which were weighed on a system different from and probably far older than that employed for silver (see Appendix A).

Passing to the Teutonic peoples we find traces of the same ancient practice. For according to one system a mancus of silver (a mere unit of account) corresponded with the value of an ox. Similarly the pound (libra) was generally regarded as the silver equivalent of the worth of a man[53]. But the strongest proof is that Charlemagne in his dealings with the Saxons found it necessary to define the value of his solidus of 12 pence (denarii) by equating it to the value of an ox of a year old of either sex in the autumn season, just as it is sent to the stall. In the same law we find a list of regulation prices for other commodities, such as oats, honey, rye, similar to those already quoted from the Welsh laws[54]. The English word fee, which originally meant an ox, as is shown not only by the German Vieh, which still retains its original meaning, and by such expressions in Anglo-Saxon as gangende feoh, is in itself a proof that cattle served as the most generally recognized form of money. It might be expected that much the same state of things existed among the Scandinavian peoples. Their chief media of exchange were cows, and woollen cloths, slaves, and gold ornaments. By the laws of Hakon the Good penalties could be paid in cows, provided that they were not too old, in slaves, provided they were not under fifteen years of age, in cloths, and in weapons[55].

Gold and silver were employed by the northern peoples in the form of rings.

This has led people to talk much about ring money as if it was a true currency, circulating like the stamped money of later times. The truer view seems to be that these rings, whether employed by the ancient Egyptians or the prehistoric inhabitants of Mycenae, the Kelts or Teutons, were nothing more than ornaments and passed in the ordinary way of barter, having a recognized distinct relation to other forms of property, such as cattle and slaves. It has been the custom in all countries for the person who desires to have an article of jewellery made to give to the goldsmith a certain weight of gold or silver, out of which the latter manufactures the desired ornament. Such is the practice at the present day in India; you give the goldsmith so many gold mohurs or sovereigns, or rupees, as the case may be; he squats down in your verandah, and with a few primitive tools quickly turns out the article you desire, which of course will weigh as many mohurs or sovereigns as you have given him (provided that you have stood by all the time, keeping a sharp look-out to prevent his abstracting any of the metal). That in like fashion gold ornaments for ordinary wearing purposes were regularly of known weights in ancient times is shown clearly by the account of the presents given to Rebekah by Abraham’s servant, ‘a gold earring of half a shekel weight and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight’ (Genesis xxiv. 22). The same word appears in Job xlii. 11: ‘Then came there unto him all his brethren and all his sisters and all that had been of his acquaintance before ... every man also gave him a piece of money and every one an earring of gold.’ Consequently Rebekah’s golden ring (whether it was to adorn her nose or ear) of half a shekel weighed 65 grains, being half the light shekel or ox-unit. We are not told the weight of the earrings contributed by his sympathetic kinsfolk for the afflicted patriarch, but it is evident that they were of a uniform standard. No doubt such rings had from time immemorial passed in the ordinary course of barter from hand to hand. This is strongly supported by a piece of evidence produced independently of the previous suggestion by Dr Hoffmann of Kiel, who has showed[56] that betzer (‎‏בצר‏‎) the word used for gold in Job xxii. 24-25 (bĕtzĕr) and in Job xxxvi. 19 (b’tzar), from a comparison of its cognates in Hebrew and Arabic means simply a ring, which through the extended meaning ring-gold came finally to be used as a name for the metal simply. To take another example from a very different region, the golden ornaments of the ancient Irish (of which numerous specimens exist in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy) were made according to specified weight. Thus queen Medbh is represented as saying: ‘My spear-brooch of gold, which weighs thirty ungas, and thirty half ungas, and thirty crosachs and thirty quarter [crosachs].’ O’Curry, Manners and Customs of Ancient Irish, iii. 112. But we need not go beyond Greek soil itself for such illustrations. The well-known story of Archimedes and the weight of the golden crown, which led to the discovery of specific gravity, is sufficient to show that the practice in Greece was such as I describe.