Finance, Industry, Transportation. 



EARLY FORMS OF CURRENCY. 



Skins of wild animals cured constitute one 

 of the earliest forms of currency known, and 

 while employed in the most ancient times, are 

 not yet disused in some portions of the world. 

 Such a medium seems appropriate among those 

 who subsist by the chase, as all primeval peo- 

 ples must in some degree, and it is not, there- 

 fore, surprising to find that in the transactions 

 of the Hudson Bay Fur Company with the 

 Indians, the unit of value by which the price 

 of other articles was reckoned was the beaver 

 skin. 



Pastoral people employ similarly the skins 

 of tame animals, originally delivering the en- 

 tire skin, a cumbrous process deficient in con- 

 venience and economy, but finally employing a 

 small disc cut from the leather as a represent- 

 ative of its value. Live stock is also widely 

 employed, as it has been from the days of 

 Abraham, and though a rude, it is still a sub- 

 stantially uniform, denominator of value. The 

 Greeks stamped the image of an ox on a piece 

 of leather, and the image had thence the cur- 

 rent value of the animal represented. In the 

 East, the- camel, the ass, and the sheep have 

 been, ever since they were subdued to the uses 

 of mankind, employed to reckon possessions 

 or determine the amount of tribute or marriage 

 portions. In Lapland and some portions of 

 Sweden and Norway, the amount of wealth 

 possessed by a person is denominated in rein- 

 deer. Among the Tartars the number of mares 

 similarly determines the opulence of their pos- 

 sessors. Among the Esquimaux it is custom- 

 ary to speak of one another as worth so many 

 dogs. 



Slaves have been employed to determine 

 ratios of value since the state of bondage was 

 first established among men. In New Guinea 

 the slave is still the unit by which the value of 

 other possessions is recorded, as he used to be 

 among the Portuguese traders of the Gold 

 Coast. The Portuguese also found small mats 

 called libongoes, valued at about one and one 

 halfpence each, employed as currency on the 

 African coast, and bunches of red feathers 

 serve by their comparative stability to mark 

 the fluctuations of yams and breech-clouts in 

 some of the tropical islands of the Pacific. 

 Some tribes of North American Indians found 

 wampum as useful in their rather limited mer- 

 cantile transactions as the merchant of South 

 street or Burling slip finds greenbacks or bills 

 of exchange. 



Cowry shells are still extensively used in 



East India, Siam, and among some of the 

 islands of the Indian Archipelago. Among 

 the Fijians whales' teeth pass readily from 

 ! hand to hand, effecting all necessary inter- 

 changes, the red teeth being taken at about 

 twenty times the value of the white ones. 



Ornaments of all kinds have in all times 

 constituted measures of value. In Egypt, 

 Phoenicia, Etruria, and many other ancient 

 countries, as well as in Ireland and Northum- 

 bria, rings have been found which were de- 

 signed to serve the double purpose of orna- 

 ment and currency, and the same dual function 

 may be ascribed to the anklets, armlets, and 

 earrings which are worn throughout British 

 India, Persia, Egypt, and Abyssinia. The 

 Goths and Celts fashioned their rings of thick 

 golden wire wound in spirals, from which va- 

 rious lengths could be broken to accommodate 

 the varying needs of traffic. Gold chains have 

 been similarly employed. In many countries 

 golden beads are yet hoarded, worn, and circu- 

 lated, fulfilling thus the triple functions of 

 money, inasmuch as they constitute at once 

 a store of value, a standard of value, and 

 an instrument of exchange. Amber was 

 used as currency by the savage races of 

 the Baltic in the period of the Roman do- 

 minion, as it still is in some of the regions 

 of the East. The Egyptian scarabee carved 

 on sard or nephrite or other precious stones, 

 circulated freely throughout the Mediterranean 

 coasts and islands probably before the first 

 Phoenician coin was impressed ; and engraved 

 gems and precious stones were employed to 

 transfer wealth as well from one country to 

 another as from hand to hand until a compar- 

 atively recent period. In Africa ivory tusks 

 pass to and fro in the processes of trade, rudely 

 defining the ratio of value of other articles. 

 Among the Tartars, bricks of tea, or cubes of 

 that herb pressed into a solid form, pass from 

 hand to hand as freely as beaver skins do at 

 the trading posts of Hudson Bay or the Sas- 

 katchewan. Among, the Malayans the only 

 currency entirely equal to the requirements of 

 trade consists of rough hardware, such as hoes, 

 shovels, and the like. Pieces of cotton cloth 

 of a fixed length, called Guinea cloth, for a 

 long period constituted the unit of value in 

 Senegal, Abyssinia, Mexico, Peru, Siberia, and 

 some of the islands of the Pacific Ocean. In 

 Sumatra, cubes of beeswax of a fixed weight ; 

 in Scotland handmade nails ; in Switzerland, 

 eggs ; in Newfoundland, dried codfishJ;iii Vir- 

 ginia, tobacco ; in Yucatan, cacao nuts ; in 



