182 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MONEY DAVIDSON. 



the white trader bags of copra or dried cocoanut kernel have 

 come into general use.* The usual effect of such a contact of 

 races has been the substitution of a corresponding manufactured 

 article for the original commodity used by the natives. Thus, 

 among the Pacific Coast Indians, blankets have become the 

 medium of exchange in place of furs. Since all exchange is 

 mutual, the civilized trader must abandon his natural medium 

 of exchange and adopt the medium of exchange prescribed by 

 the character of the trade. Thus, in the New England colonies, 

 wampum, a form of shell money, and in French Canada, beaver 

 skins, were used naturally in the trade with the Indians at all 

 times ; and on occasion, owing to the scarcity in the colonies of 

 small change, these articles were used as money between 

 Europeans. Indeed, in many communities where money, as we 

 know it, is, for one reason or other, scarce, commodities may 

 come into use as money, not because the people know no better, 

 but because they have no better. Thus, on the north-east coast 

 of Newfoundland at this day, cod alone is currency."!* 



The natural currency of a community is that commodity in 

 which its wealth mainly consists. In the hunting stage of 

 society property consists in weapons of war and the chase, in a 

 few simple, natural ornaments made of shells or teeth, and in 

 the skins of animals, which serve for clothing, and for the cover- 

 ing of the hut or wigwam. But as man advances in civilization, 

 he succeeds in taming animals, whose flesh and milk form his 

 foods, whose skins or wool form his clothing. This is the pas- 

 toral stage in which a man's wealth is reckoned by his herds. 

 In the more settled agricultural stage, property consists not only 

 of slaves and domesticated animals, but of dwellings and grain, 

 and above all, of stocks of the precious and other metals, 

 though indeed, in early history, all metals are precious. These 

 later forms of wealth man has come to value according to his 

 earlier standards of wealth ; and there is every reason to believe 

 that the original standards of value of metallic coins are based 

 on mere primitive ox and cow units. When man has come into 



*F. W. Christian. Geographical Journal, Feb., 1899. 



tLant : Cruising on the French shore Westminster Review, March, 1899. 



