THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MONEY DAVIDSON. 183 



the possession of the metals, and has acquired the power of 

 working them, a long course of monetary development is possible 

 for him. He finds out by experience which metal suits his 

 purpose best ; and that purpose may change as the centuries 

 pass. Our present currencies are the result of the law of the 

 survival of the fittest. The primitive condition was general 

 use ; and that always remains the first condition of the use of 

 an article as currency. But along with that, there are other 

 conditions which are stated in every monetary text-book. All 

 the metals have been used in turn. Iron was used in Sparta, 

 and is used to-day in the Dark Continent. Lead and tin, and 

 platinum, gold, and silver, and copper, have all been used. But 

 experience has shown that gold and silver pre-eminently, and 

 copper, or some alloy of it, in a less degree, are best suited for 

 currency purposes. 



This has been the general course of development ; but though 

 it is sometimes hard, amid all the talk about progress to realize 

 that the stationary state of society is the usual phenomenon, 

 yet it is true that most peoples have not become civilized, and 

 since many remain in the most primitive stages of society, we 

 still have many actual instances of primitive currency in present 

 day use. Progress seems alike impossible in the frozen north 

 and in the torrid south ; and in these regions the conditions of 

 life are almost unchanged, and there we may see the kinds of 

 money our forefathers of untold generations ago employed. 



The rigour of the northern winters prevents the rearing of 

 domestic animals, or the systematic cultivation of the soil, and 

 there the primitive hunting stage still exists. The wealth of 

 these Arctic communities consists in skins, and in some cases of 

 dried fish, which they exchange with the trader from the south 

 for their few luxuries or use for their own clothing and sus- 

 tenance. Under these conditions skins, or their modern equiva- 

 lents, form the natural medium of exchange. A writer in a 

 popular magazine gives a graphic description of the skin money 

 used in the Hudson Bay Territories : 



" In old times, when an Indian wanted a rifie, the rifle was 

 stood on end, and the Indian laid furs flat on the ground till 



