EVOLUTION OF THE DOLLAR MARK' 



523 



" globe dollar " of Charles III. exhibited between the pillars two globes 

 representing the old and new worlds as subject to Spain. A Spanish 

 banner or a scroll around the pillars of Hercules was claimed to be the 

 origin of the dollar mark. 7 The theory supposes that the mark 

 stamped on the coins was copied into commercial documents. ISTo 

 embarrassments were experienced from the fact that no manuscripts 



Fig. 1. "Pillar Dollar" of 1661, showing the "Pillars of Hercules." 

 (From "Century Dictionary," under " Pillar.'*) 



are known which show in writing the imitation of the pillars and scroll. 

 On the contrary, the imaginative historian mounted his Pegasus and 

 pranced into antiquity for revelations still more startling. " The 

 device of the two pillars was stamped upon the coins " of the people' 

 who " built Tyre and Carthage " ; the Hebrews had " traditions of the 

 pillars of Jachin and Boaz in Solomon's Temple/' " still further back 

 in the remote ages we find the earliest known origin of the symbol in 

 connection with the Deity. It was a type of reverence with the first 

 people of the human race who worshipped the sun and the plains of 

 central Asia." The author of this romance facetiously remarks, " from 

 thence the descent of the symbol to our own time is obvious." 8 Strange 

 to sa} r , the ingenious author forgot to state that this connection of the 

 dollar mark with ancient deities accounts for the modern phrase, " the 

 almighty dollar." 



Most sober-minded thinkers have been inclined to connect the dollar 



7 M. Townsend, op. cit., p. 420. 



8 "American Historical Record," Vol. III., Philadelphia, pp. 407-8; Balti- 

 more American, June 3, 1874. 



