260 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



or pictures, furnishing all the details of the inscriptions and drawings 

 on the face of the notes as fully as an actual impression from the wood- 

 cut or stereotype of the note itself would have done. What is perhaps 

 more remarkable is that the inscriptions on the notes and their general 

 arrangement, while not absolutely uniform from dynasty to dynasty, 

 nevertheless correspond so closely with each other and with that of the 

 Ming note, the inscriptions on which were translated by Morse, that 

 one might almost conceive that many of the notes would have circu- 

 lated in the days of the Ming dynasty without attracting much atten- 

 tion. The legends on the face of the notes are said to be legible with 

 ease by any person who can read modern Chinese characters and those 

 inscriptions which are written in seal characters yield readily to the 

 concentration of a little effort on the part of the student who is at all 

 familiar with the various seal characters. The oldest among the 

 notes delineated in this work was emitted in 650 A.D., about one 

 hundred and seventy-five years before the quarrelsome bands of 

 Anglo Saxons who constituted the Heptarchy were brought under one 

 control and organized into the government which has become known as 

 England. It seems incredible that at a time when English History 

 as such had not yet begun, the chinese should have developed the 

 manufacture of paper and cultivated the art of block printing, making 

 use of characters wdiieh have persisted to this day. Yet that is what 

 is revealed by the representation of the currency of this period to 

 be found in this chinese numismatical work. My friend, Mr. Edward 

 B. Drew, formerly a Commissioner of Customs on the staff of Sir 

 Robert Hart ; to whom I am deeply indebted for his patient examina- 

 tion of the inscriptions on these notes, at my instance scrutinized the 

 date of the notes of this early emission carefully and he says there 

 can be no doubt that the characters which fix the date of the issue 

 actually represent a period covering the years 650-656 A. D. Ramsden 

 hesitates to endorse the authenticity of this emission. He gives it 

 place because the author or compiler of the chinese work above 

 referred to claims that it was the first in use, but says in that con- 

 nection, "I would like to add, however, that no other authority 

 seems to share this contention, which is unsupported by historical or 

 other data." As to this emission being the first — an examination of 

 the inscriptions on the face of the notes will disclose the penalty for 

 counterfeiting and the offer of a reward to whomsoever shall furnish 

 information which will lead to the arrest of the counterfeiter. It is 

 not probable that these clauses could have been incorporated in the 

 inscriptions on the notes of the first emission. It would seem as 



