A CHINESE WORK ON NUMISMATICS. 4/ / 



INTRODUCTION BY THE TRANSLATOR. 



The reign of a Chinese emperor is designated as such and such an 

 era, and all notes bear the name of the era in which they were issued. 

 In some cases, during one reign, the name of the era is changed many 

 times. To give corresponding dates in the Christian era is sometimes 

 a difficult task, as books on the subject often disagree. However, in 

 each case the best authorities have been followed. 



The dates that appear after the names of emperors in parentheses 

 denote the periods of their reigns. 



In the transliteration of Chinese proper names, Giles' system has 

 been followed. 



In translating the inscriptions on the various notes, the original 

 wording has been followed as closely as possible, with the purpose of 

 bringing out such distinctions as, for example, the following: 



"Shall be rewarded''. "Shall be given", 



"The informant". "To him who informs". 



Much difficulty has been experienced in rendering the Chinese 

 into English because of the absolute lack of kinship between the two 

 languages. To give the general meaning or to translate the Chinese 

 freely, as many writers have done, would have been simpler, but by 

 this method the slight, yet important, distinctions in the text of each 

 issue could not be brought out. 



No doubt many of the English words chosen might be replaced by 

 more appropriate ones; for instance, the word "informer" might be 

 preferred by some to the word "informant", etc., etc. 



It will be noted that the text accompanying the different issues 

 varies in length. In some cases the inscriptions on the notes have 

 been incorporated in the text, and the designs are described, while in 

 others they have been ignored. Inconsistencies are noticeable fea- 

 tures of this book, and of typographical errors there are not a few. 

 ^Vherever an inconsistency or an error has been discovered, an en- 

 deavor has been made to mention it in a footnote. 



In the phrase "... .note to be used as cash (or as silver), the 

 word "as" is the equivalent of "together tcith", "on the same footing", 

 or "jointly". 



" To be used side by side". In the original, four characters which 

 literally mean " ■parallel-going-use-cinploy" are frequently used, as 



