1882.] Exhihition of a rare Cliinese Banhiofc. 77 



The Council reported that Messrs. J. Westland and F. W. Peterson 

 had completed their audit ol: the Society's Accounts and furnished a report. 

 A vote of thanks was passed to the Auditors. 



The Council recommended that the Society should subscribe Rs. 50 

 to the fund now being raised for a Memorial for Mr. L. Schwendler ab tlie 

 Zoological Gardens. The recommendation was approved. 



The President said the Governor of Hongkong, whom he had 

 brouglit to the meeting, possessed a very rare Chinese Bank note which he 

 would be kind enough to show to the Society, 



SiE Pope Hennessy, in laying the note upon the table, reminded tlie 

 members that in the 2nd Book of Marco Polo's travels is a chapter entitled 

 " How the great Kaan causeth the bark of trees, made into something like 

 paper, to pass for money over all his country." 



Marco Polo describes those bank notes as something resembling sheets 

 of paper but black and of different sizes. He says they are made from the 

 bark of the mulberry tree. 



Four hundred years after Marco Polo wrote, the accuracy of his work 

 was questioned on tliis very ground, it being imagined that the Chinese 

 could not possibly have had paper money at a time when paper money was 

 unknown in EurojDe. None of the notes seen by Marco Polo in tlie 

 thirteenth century appears to have been preserved, but a few notes of 

 the fourteenth century are in existence, of which this is one. 



Col. Yule in his edition of Marco Polo says, " I have never heard of 

 the preservation of any note of the Mongols; but some of the Ming 

 dynasty survive and are highly valued as curiosities in China. The late 

 Sir George Staunton appears to have possessed one ; Dr. Lockhart formerly 

 had two, of which he gave one to Sir Harry Parkes, and retains the other. 

 The paper is so dark as to explain Marco's description of it as black. By 

 Dr. Lockhart's kindness I am enabled to give (says Col. Yule) a reduced 

 representation of this note, as near a facsimile as we have been able to 

 render it, but with some restoration, e. g., the seals of which in the original 

 there is the barest indication remaining." 



A facsimile of the note exhibited to the Society has been made by the 

 Lithographic Branch of the Surveyor General's Office and will be issued with 

 the Proceedings for April. 



On comparing the original with the engraving in Col. Yule's edition 

 it was seen to be twice the length and breadth of the latter, of a darker 

 shade and with some variation in the conventional ornamentation. 



The Plate annexed is as close a facsimile as was possible under the 

 circumstances. The upper line of Chinese characters on the bank note 



