A CHINESE WORK ON NUMISMATICS. 471 



Kao-Tsung 1127-1162 A.D., there were three varieties issued, of which 

 he gives the denominations. He pubHshes three illustrations pur- 

 porting to represent these notes, but as a matter of fact two of these 

 illustrations are of denominations not mentioned by him in his list of 

 three. There are numerous other incongruities of this sort and some 

 of a similar nature are to be found when one attempts to determine 

 whether the notes mentioned or depicted are from his collection or 

 from that of some other collector. The only thing that seems to be 

 fairly well established is that whether from his collection or from 

 elsewhere the designs of the notes were drawn from actual specimens. 



It will be remembered that when the stock of Law's Company of 

 the Indies was first increased, the right to subscribe to new stock was 

 made dependent on the ownership of four shares of the old. The 

 different shares were then christened vieres and fiUes and at a later 

 date the next succeeding emission was called petitcs filles. It is cer- 

 tainly very remarkable that this humorous technology of the French 

 stock market at the beginning of the eighteenth century should have 

 been anticipated four hundred and fifty years in China, but it is 

 recorded that in the period 1264-1294 A.D. of the Ylian d^masty, notes 

 were emitted on the basis of five for one in specie and these notes 

 were called the Mother while the equivalent specie for any note was 

 called the Child. 



It has already been stated that the various notes described in the 

 Chinese work which we are considering were practically framed after 

 the same model. The Chinese dynastic historians allude to emissions 

 which were evidently intended to be retired within a given time, to 

 others whose circulation was intended to be confined to a certain 

 district, and there are statements made which indicate that specific 

 preparation was made for the redemption of certain of the notes. 

 There is, however, no illustration furnished by the author of Ch'iian 

 Pu T'ung Chih in which there is any indication through inscriptions 

 on the face of the note or elsewhere, that provision had been made 

 for its redemption, nor of any limitation of either time or space for 

 the circulation of the note. We are not however limited to this work 

 for knowledge of these old Chinese notes, and although the main 

 purpose of this translation is to furnish a key to the knowledge con- 

 tained in this particular book, it is desirable to add thereto something 

 about other sources of information. 



There is, in the first place, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, a 

 complete set of photographs of the twenty emissions, of Chao-tsung, 

 Lung-chi, 889-890 A.D., of the T'ang dynasty. The original notes 



