A STUDY OF PRIMITIVE MONEY. 



301 



The following' extract from a paper on Early Hindoo Mathematics 

 justifies the inference that the use of the Cyprcea moneta for money has 

 a very considerable antiquity, and quite 

 likely extends back to a period many cen- 

 turies earlier than the date of the trea- 

 tise. 



This treatise, the Lilivati of Bhascara 

 Acharya, is supposed to have been a com- 

 pilation, and there are reasons for believ- 

 ing a portion of it to have been written 

 about A. D. 628. However this may be, 

 it is of the greatest interest, and its date 

 is sufficiently remote to give to Hindoo 

 mathematics a respectable antiquity. 



"The treatise continues rapidly through the usual rules, but pauses 

 at the reduction of fractions to hold up the avaricious man to scorn : 

 'The quarter of a sixteenth of the fifth of three quarters of two-thirds 

 of a moiety of a dramina was given to a beggar by a person from whom 

 he asked alms. Tell me how many cowry shells the miser gave, if thou 

 be conversant in arithmetic with the reduction termed subdivision of 

 fractions." 7 * 



Fig. 1. 

 Money cowry (Oyprcea moneta). 



(Pacific Islands. From specimens in the U. S. Na 

 tional Museum. ) 



ployrnents, must have been subjected to perpetual interruptions, so long as it was 

 restricted to mere barter. A carries produce to market, and B is desirous to purchase 

 it ; but the produce belonging to B is not suitable for A. C, again, would like to buy 

 B's produce, but B is already fully supplied with the equivalent C has to offer. In 

 such cases — and they must be of constant occurrence wherever money is not intro- 

 duced — no direct exchange could take place between the parties ; aud it might be very 

 difficult to bring it about indirectly. 



The extreme inconvenience attending such situations must early have forced them- 

 selves on the attention of every one. Efforts would, in consequence, be made to 

 avoid them ; and it would speedily appear that the best, or rather the only way in 

 which this could be effected, was to exchange either the whole or a part of one's sur- 

 plus produce for some commodity of known value, and in general demand ; and which, 

 consequently, few persons would be inclined to refuse to accept as an equivalent for 

 whatever they had to dispose of. 



After this commodity had begun to be employed as a means for exchanging other 

 commodities, individuals would become willing to purchase a greater quantity of it 

 than might be required to pay for the products they were desirous of immediately 

 obtaining, knowing that should they at any future period want a further supply of 

 either of these or other articles they would be able readily to procure them in ex- 

 change for this universally desired commodity. Though at first circulating slowly 

 and with difficulty, it would, as the advantages arising from its use were better ap- 

 preciated, begin to pass freely from baud to hand. Its value, as compared with other 

 things, would thus become to be universally known, and it would at last be used, not 

 only as the common medium of exchange, but as a standard by which to measure the 

 value of other things. 



Now this commodity, whatever it may be, is money. _ McC ul loch's Com'l Dict'y. 

 Vol. II, p. 193. Phila. ed., 1851. 



# Prof. E. S. Holden, Popular Science Monthly, July, 1873. 



