OCT.— DEC. 1856.] Notes on Indian Currencies. 29 
certain uniform effects follow certain causes in any of the physical 
sciences. 
With a nation emerging from barharism, as soon as a variety of 
productions and a multiplicity of wants have reached a certain 
pitch, the fact that Money will supplant the intricate and circuitous 
method of Barter, is as much an intrinsic axiom in Pecunio- 
Economy, as that 2 and 2 make 4 in Arithmetic. 
Acquaintance with the early history of nations assures us that 
such a result will always follow ; for have not all nations adopted 
an intermediary currency at one {)eriod or another of their rise into 
national importance ? » 
The metal employed may \/^ry, as frequently, as there are or 
have been nations and* as best adapted to their varying resources 
and circumstances, nevertheless every one of them have at some 
period of their course adopted some, silver — some, copper — some, 
iron^* and some, gold — some, leather and some, shells — some, to- 
bacco and some, salt — some, beads and some, slaves ; but all have 
employed a currency as a measure of value to represent capital, 
the accumulation of labor, and to promote the transfer of commo- 
dities and mutual exchanges ; and the institution of money may be 
considered as natural a result of a certain posture of circumstances 
in a nation's existence, as activity and buoyancy are the natural 
result of youth in an individual. 
For a good account of the different substances used as currency 
in different countries, from the time Abraham bought his field for 
400 shekels of silver down to the new Florin of Victoria, see the 
III. chapter of a book lately published called McCleod's Theory 
and Practice of Banking. 
With nearly all nations metal will be found to have been the 
substance employed, from its possession, as I have said before, of 
a certain intrinsic value and of properties such that any fixed weight 
of metal (A) being held to represent a certain fixed value (B) 
* Lycurgus established an iron currency, to lay up 10 minae of which (£85-5-10) 
a whole room was required and to remove it at least a yoke of oxen to the end 
that by continuing poor, the Spartans, were best guarded against the invasion of 
an enemy. 
