248 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



ten hundreds of cash. The lower panel contains the following: 'The Imperial 

 Board of Revenue having memorialized the Throne has received the Imperial 

 sanction for the issue of government notes of the Ming Empire, to circulate 

 on the same footing as standard cash. To counterfeit is death. The inform- 

 ant will receive 250 taels of silver and in addition the entire property of the 

 criminal. Hung Wu. . . .year. . . .month. . .day.' A seal 3.25 inches square 

 is impressed, once on the upper panel, once on the lower panel, bearing in 

 square seal characters the legend 'The Seal of Government Note Adminis- 

 trators.' On the back of the note, above is impressed in vermilion a seal 

 bearing in square seal characters the legend ' Seal for Circulating Government 

 Notes'; below, within a border 6.2 by 4.1 inches is repeated the middle of 

 the upper panel of the face — One Kwan, with a pictorial illustration repre- 

 senting ten hundreds of cash." 



What was known about the Subject in the Fourteenth 



Century. 



Such was the form of note in use in China after so many years of 

 practical experience with paper money, a form it may be said which 

 did not differ in any essential particular from that of the earliest notes 

 which have been preserved, and which closely resembles that of our 

 own greenbacks in its substantial features, even down to the recital 

 of the law against counterfeiting. In the different Chinese notes the 

 names of the emperors and of the dynasties; of the denominational 

 values; and of the rewards for information as to counterfeiters; are 

 subject to change, but the general form was as we find it in the Ming 

 note for one kwan. 



Nonintercourse with China will not altogether explain why our 

 ancestors were not able to profit by the experience of these orientals 

 in the use of paper money, for during the 13th and 14th cen uries 

 information concerning Chinese paper money began to filter through. 

 Incredulity and incapacity to comprehend what information was 

 placed before the readers and students in Christendom, prevented 

 them from taking advantage of what little was actually submitted to 

 them. It is a matter of some interest to us in the examination of this 

 subject to see what knowledge has been at different times during the 

 past six hundred years at the command of one who would master the 

 subject, and of what he can now avail himself. 



The earliest mention of the Chinese paper of early days to be found 

 in European literature was made by a Franciscan friar named Rubruk 2 



2 Quoted by Vissering, "On Chinese Currency," p. 26. He gives as author- 

 ity "Recueil de divers voyages curieux par P. Bergeron. Voyage de Rubru- 

 quis en Tartarie," p. 91. Leide, 1729. 



