THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 53 



Phocoea in Ionia, in the 7th century before Christ, were the first to 

 conceive the idea of stamping a design on coins, using their city 

 arms, a phoca, or seal, to give the warranty of the state for the right 

 weight and value of their money. Thence the art of coining spread 

 rapidly to the other Greek towns of Asia Minor, and was trans- 

 planted to .-Egina, Athens, and the Greek colonies in Africa and 

 Italy. The weight of the most ancient gold coin, according to Max 

 Muller, in all these countries, was originally the same as that of the 

 old Babylonian gold shekel, or pound, only stamped with the arms 

 of each country. This shekel, in spite of historical disturbances, 

 has held its own through centuries. The gold coins of Croesus, 

 Darius, Philip and Alexander, have all the same weight as the old 

 Babylonian shekel; 60 of them going to one mina, and what is 

 stranger still, our own sovereign, or pound, has nearly the same 

 weight, and whilst 20 silver drachms or half shekels went to a gold 

 shekel, 20 silver shillings are equal to one sovereign. On this basis 

 was the ratio fixed between gold and silver. 



The origin of the pound sterling is as follows : — In the days of 

 William the Conqueror, the management of the currency was in the 

 hands of the Jews, who thoroughly understood the principles of 

 money. They took a certain quantity ©f silver, or a weight known 

 as the "Tower" pound, something between a Roman pound and a 

 pound Troy. This was the standard of measurement, the unit of 

 value. Out of this pound were cut twenty separate pieces, from 

 each of which were then cut twelve separate coins or pennies, whose 

 weight was a pennyweight — the 240th part of a lb. Troy, and this 

 became the actual coin in circulation, for shillings were not then 

 coined for use. These silver pennies weighed each one-twentieth 

 part of an ounce, and in modern money were worth about 2^d. 

 This system lasted till the reign of Edward I., or about the year 

 1300, when the Jews were banished, and their places as money mer- 

 chants were taken by Italians who had been brought in to manage 

 the coining operations of the mint. They introduced gold for coin- 

 age, and then the pound sterling ceased to be a pound weight of 

 sterling silver, for the Tower pound was divided into thirty or forty 

 parts, still called shillings, of which 20 made up a pound sterling, 

 and the metal was debased by alloys so as to increase the circulating 

 medium at the expense of the people. There was no standard for 

 this new gold coinage, and this value had to be estimated in silver, 



