254 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



special reason why economists should turn their attention to the pages 

 of Du Halde or to those of de Mailla, but it cannot be denied that 

 there was information at their command in both these publications, 

 and probably from time to time readers were stimulated by it to 

 further research. 



For a period of about forty years after this the subject does not 

 appear to have excited either orientalists or economists. At any rate 

 there are no contributions on the subject in the literature of the day 

 during this period which have attracted attention enough to cause 

 inclusion in this review ~i S.±c authorities who have contributed to 

 knowledge or stirred up interest in the subject. When next the matter 

 is taken up, China is no longer a mysterious land shut off from the 

 rest of the world. Students have mastered to some extent the diffi- 

 culties which the language interposes to prevent free interchange 

 of thought between the Chinese and foreigners, and knowledge has 

 been acquired that there is a vast amount of historical information 

 treasured in the pages of Chinese books on the shelves of their great 

 libraries. The time has come when sinologues can make topical 

 investigations of matters strictly chinese. 



The Subject Fairly Opened Up. 



The first approach to the subject of chinese paper money in a truly 

 scientific spirit was made by Heinrich Julius Klaproth, a German 

 oriental scholar and traveller, who published an article in the Paris 

 "Journal Asiatique," in November, 1822, in which he furnished the 

 European world with a brief account of the chinese paper money 

 experience. 



This article was translated and published in the Journal of the 

 American Oriental Society, 8 by John Pickering, one of the founders of 

 that Society and at one time President of the American Academy of 

 Arts and Sciences, the matter by this publication being brought to 

 the attention of American students. 



In 1824, Klaproth published a little volume entitled "Memoires 

 relatifs a 1'Asie," in which he incorporated his article on the paper 

 currency. The subject was there treated in a general way and neces- 

 sarily with great brevity, covering the dates from 807 A.D. down to 



8 Vol. I., p. 136, et seq. 



