258 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



sions and also gives the alleged results arising from the emissions, 

 down to about 1210 A.D. He does not deal with the continuation 

 of the ehinese work which was published in 1586. 



In 1885, Alexander Del Mar briefly described Chinese paper money 

 in his History of Money in Ancient Countries. Klaproth was his 

 main authority. 



Topical Publications in the Orient. 



In 1889, Shioda Saburo published a paper on Chinese paper money 

 in the Journal of the Peking Oriental Society, a contribution pre- 

 sumably made at a meeting of that society. 16 Saburo was from Japan 

 and evidently attacked the subject with indefatigable industry. His 

 obvious lack of knowledge as to the economic situation produced by 

 the fluctuation of the quantity of currency in circulation impairs the 

 value of his paper. It is, however, a learned dissertation notwith- 

 standing much obvious confusion of thought on the part of the writer. 

 The paper is founded upon translations from Chinese authors but it is 

 difficult to separate the expressions of opinion of the writer from 

 those which he attributes to the authors whom he quotes. 



In 1905, Joseph Edkins, a missionary to China, published a book 

 which was devoted to the development from Chinese sources of methods 

 of revenue and taxation in the past in China ; and incidentally to the 

 story of the use of paper money, so far as that story was told by the 

 Chinese authors made use of by the writer. 17 



During a long life spent in China, Edkins had acquired a prodigious 

 amount of knowledge of the ehinese language and also of its literature, 

 and had published numerous books on different subjects connected 

 with ehinese life and history mainly, however, devoted to philological 

 topics. His "Banking and Prices" has, scattered through its pages 

 in a desultory way, substantially the same knowledge concerning 

 paper money as had already been furnished by Chaudoir, with a little 

 additional information, but all of it buried under a mass of statements 

 about other subjects, which make the matter relating especially to 

 paper money difficult of discovery. A writer who made use of " Bank- 



16 The origin of the Paper Currency of China. Journal of the Peking 

 Oriental Society, 3, No. 4. I am indebted to Mr. Edward B. Drew for call- 

 ing my attention to this paper. 



17 Banking and Prices in China, by J. Edkins, D.D. Shanghai, printed at 

 the Presbyterian Mission Press (1905). 



