CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 229 
The question of the origin and evolution of the various systems of weights 
and measures is of engrossing interest, but is hardly the subject of these notes. 
I propose therefore to refer to one small branch of the subject, a branch that 
has been considerably neglected—I mean to money-scales and weights. The 
subjects brought before the delegates from the Corresponding Societies have 
varied considerably, but as a rule an effort is made to suggest lines in which 
work might be accomplished by them. In the first place, I would like to urge 
upon the delegates the necessity of every care being taken, preferably in the 
local museum, of objects which are going out of date or out of fashion; objects 
which come under the heading of ‘bygones.’ It is amazing how soon a once 
common thing becomes scarce as the inevitable result of evolution and improve- 
ment. Should anyone doubt this, let him try to obtain a tinder-box, a flail, or a 
‘bone-shaker’ bicycle; yet all of you have probably seen them used. Other 
objects once common, which can yet be picked up, are the various forms of 
boxes of scales and weights for dealing with money. No one seems to have 
made a particular study of these. In most museums perhaps two or three can 
be seen; but even the National Museums in London contain very few examples. 
The following notes are based upon a collection of over 200 specimens, each of 
which has some particular characteristic, now in the museum at Hull. These, 
with the help of Mr. J. F. Musham, I have been able to get together during the 
past few years. The majority of them date from the seventeenth to the nine- 
teenth centuries, though a few are much earlier and others later. In addition 
to showing ways in which local societies can do good by preserving relics of the 
past, the necessity for the first manufacture of these scales and the extra- 
ordinary variety of the weights, which varied from time to time, demonstrate 
the desirability of still more simplifying the complicated though relatively 
simple system now in vogue. 
The necessity for money-scales and weights arose long ago, but was accen- 
tuated in this country and on the Continent, in the Middle Ages, in conse- 
quence of the interchange in the process of trade of an enormous number of 
varieties of coins; so much so that in some sets of English examples as many as 
twenty or more weights were required, even greater numbers being found in 
foreign boxes of scales and weights—these foreign sets being frequently used 
by English merchants to assist them in their financial transactions. 
Judging from Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and even Chinese antiquities, it 
is clear that from the earliest times there have been scales and weights, and as 
the earlier coins were valued by their weight it is obvious there were coin 
scales to test them. 
Though the Romans used boxes of money-scales and weights, it is hardly to 
be expected that many such things would be preserved in anything like a 
complete state. In Egypt, however, where the conditions are so eminently 
favourable, such objects have been found, and Professor Flinders Petrie has 
kindly permitted me to examine some very interesting examples in his remark- 
able collection at University College, Gower Street. One of these sets is ina 
wooden box, about a foot in length, and is provided with a tray. In the box 
are round, square, and other receptacles for the weights, scales, balance-beam, 
&c., with lidded lockers for the smaller weights. Though ‘this set is dated 
about a.p. 340, it is almost similar in construction and appearance to the 
boxes of scales and weights so much in vogue in England from the sixteenth to 
the eighteenth centuries; the construction of the weights (of brass, square 
and circular) and that of the balance-beam with circular brass pans, &c., are 
almost alike, though separated in date by something like twelve or thirteen 
centuries. Frescoes in the hcuses at Pompeii have also provided illustrations 
of the money-scales in use in those early times. ; 
In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is a set, dating from the 
Coptic period, which even better matches English early Georgian boxes, in the 
shape of the box, the brass hinges, and the impressed concentric rings decorating 
the lid.* 
In Anglo-Saxon times money-scales were in use. In Saxon graves in Kent 
5 Egyptian Weights and Balances. Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of 
Art, vol. 12, No. 4, April 1917, pp. 85-90. 
