24 TIN MINING IN PERAK. 
These old ingots evidently passed as money, but it seems rather 
doubtful whether tin was ever coined in Perak as in Pahang, Kelantan, 
Leggai, and other of the Malay States on the eastern side of the Peninsula. 
Crawfurd, in the History of the Indian Archipelago, says, “In the countries 
which produce tin, this metal seems naturally enough to have been had 
recourse to as coin. A few coins of it are occasionally found in Java, 
and the fechis, a tin coin, still forms [1820] the small currency of several 
States, as Palenbang, Achin, Bantam, Cheribon and Queda. The pichis 
are small irregular lamina, with a hole in the middle for the convenience 
of being strung. Five thousand six hundred of these minute coin are 
considered equal to a Spanish dollar.” 
The use of tin as coin has had a wide range. In England in the 
time of James II. it was in circulation, while, according to Désiré Charnay, 
(North American Review, 18So) the ancient inhabitants of Mexico had 
coins of tin shaped like the letter T, besides round ones. 
The purposes to which tin is applied by the Malays are very limited. 
They make, or rather used to make, oil lamps of it, and an old tin fire- 
syringe is in the Perak Museum collection. It is employed for cast-net 
chains and bullets, and occasionally for the mountings of walking-sticks. 
Grotesque representations of crocodiles, elephants, tortoises, and other 
animals are cast in tin. Bronze, the alloy of copper and tin, is used for 
the swivel and other guns, and for the Malayan gongs. 
Mention has already been made of the use of bronze for the earliest 
forms of metal weapons and cutting instruments. This use of the alloy 
still survives in Malaya. Spear-heads, kris blades, tamba ladas and 
other weapons are even now sometimes to be met with.* It is rather 
an interesting survival, as in all, or nearly all, other parts of the world 
bronze has long ceased to be employed for this purpose, having been 
superseded by the more easily worked and cheaper iron and steel. 
Other equally interesting survivals from very remote times are to be met 
with in Malaya, of which the pottery of Perak and the neighbouring 
States, made without a potter's wheel, may be cited as a striking 
example. 
(To be continued.) 
* A bronze spear and tumba lada are in the Museum collection, and a bronze kris in 
that of the writer, all collected in the State. 
