DAVIS. — CERTAIN OLD CHINESE NOTES. 247 



of these notes, and he left behind him a full description of the paper 

 money that he then found in circulation. I therefore turned to that 

 source of information and examined Polo's description of the Mongol 

 notes. At the same time I procured a copy of H. B. Morse's " Trade 

 and Administration of the Chinese Empire," which was published in 

 1908 and contained a lithographic fac-simile of one of the one kwan 

 Ming notes. Morse gives in this book a translation of the various 

 inscriptions on the face of this note, whether written in ordinary 

 Chinese or in seal characters. The note pictured by Morse was emitted 

 after an experience of upward of five, possibly of seven, centuries' use 

 of paper money. It embodied therefore whatever there was that 

 this long experience had taught the Chinese to be essential in the form 

 of the note for the circulation of paper money in China. It was of 

 the same emission as the one which I had purchased. Translations 

 of the inscriptions on the one kwan Ming notes are to be found in the 

 works of several writers who treat on the subject of Chinese paper 

 money, but the most complete is that given by Morse. It is desirable 

 to know at the outset precisely what is meant by an old Chinese note. 

 I therefore incorporate Morse's translation of the inscriptions on a 

 Ming note and also include his story of the manner in which the note 

 was acquired, which runs as follows: 



"This 500-year old instrument of credit has a curious history furnishing 

 an absolute guarantee of its authenticity. During the foreign occupation 

 of Peking in 1900, some European soldiers had overthrown a sacred image of 

 Buddha, in the grounds of the Summer Palace, and, deposited in the pedestal 

 (as in the corner-stones of our public buildings), found gems and jewelry and 

 ingots of gold and silver and a bundle of these notes. Contented with the 

 loot having intrinsic value, the soldiers readily surrendered the bundle of 

 notes to a by-stander, who was present 'unofficially,' Surgeon Major Louis 

 Livingston Seaman, U. S. A., of New York and he gave to the Museum of 

 St. John's College at Shanghai, the specimen which is here reproduced. 



"The note is printed on mulberry-bark paper, which now is of a dark slate 

 colour, the 'something resembling sheets of paper, but black' of Marco Polo's 

 description. The sheet of paper is 13.5 by 8.75 inches and the design on the 

 face is 12.6 by 8.3 inches. The border, 1.4 inches wide, is made of extended 

 dragons filled around with an arabesque design, and is surmounted by a panel 

 with the inscription (from right to left) 'circulating government note of the 

 Ming Empire.' The space within the border is divided into two panels. 

 The upper has on two sides in conventionalized square seal characters, on the 

 right 'government note of the Ming Empire,' on the left 'circulating for ever 

 and ever,' between these two inscriptions, above in large ordinary characters 

 'One Kwan,' (or tiao or string), and below a pictorial illustration representing 



