CURRENCY AND COINAGE 205 



adaptability to environment. Nothing can continue to 

 exist or progress except in obedience to this law, which 

 is the root of all evolution. 



The practical usefulness of weighing by the hand is 

 limited to small pieces of metal, as payment or part 

 payment for continuous and customary purchases and 

 sales between the same parties. But it is obvious that 

 lumps of bullion of uncertain weight, i.e. size, cannot, 

 exactly pay for small articles occasionally or sporadically 

 bought. This difficulty has been naturally settled by 

 chipping pieces off a larger lump to satisfaction. In 

 China, Burma, Tibet, and many other places, chipped 

 bullion currency largely obtained, and in places still 

 obtains, a hammer and chisel being kept by the more 

 skilful and resort to the nearest jeweller on payment 

 being had by the unskilled for the purpose. I have 

 myself possessed such a hammer and chisel. Sir Fred- 

 erick Younghusband resorted to jewellers for chipping 

 during his great journey through China. Again, where 

 actual coined money has been looked upon as mere 

 bullion the larger denominations have been chipped to 

 make the smaller. The best instance comes from the 

 Himalayas, where the octagonal Nepalese rupee, each 

 part of the octagon containing the impression of a flower, 

 is split up by chipping and cutting into ' flowers ' or 

 eighth parts, especially in the neighbouring state of 

 Bhutan. A parallel showing the constancy of reasoning 

 occurs in Abyssinia, where the salt-bars used as currency 

 are ' broken ' to make small pieces. 



Here then is the next step towards metal money, the 

 possession of pieces of metal of accepted weight. When 

 these pieces have been weighed in scales, a process 

 which has naturally followed, as is proved by the uni- 

 versal existence of jeweller's scales, the chipped pieces 



