28 Notes on Indian Currencies. [no. 1, new series, 
*' to be seen in India bars of pure gold melted into a solid mass, 
" and to which the Indians give a name that might very well be 
** translated gold bricks. Under the floor of the Moonshee's 
" private room was found a flooring of these gold bricks, the walls 
" were filled with them, the beams of the rooms were hollowed out 
" and stuffed with the same precious metal." 
Everywhere in the early and uncultivated ages of a nation, before 
Fable has run into Histofy, an(;l Money driven out its cumbersome 
antecedent Barter ; when as yet Capital and Commerce are too fee- 
ble to call into action that army o<^ comp^tjting interests and trades, 
so fruitful in the invention of measures to facilitate the interchange 
of commodities ; when as yet that chimerical gentleman was daily 
to be met with, 
Whose wish and care 
A few paternal acres bound, 
(Jontent to breathe his native air 
in his own ground. 
Whose herds with milk whose fields with bread, 
Whose flocks supply him with attire, 
Whose trees in summer yield him shade, 
in winter fire. 
When it was an ordinary incident, to see men, glad to satisfy 
their few wants by an exchange of the productions themselves with 
the services and commodities of their surrounding neighbours, no 
necessity for a circulating medium existed : and there must first 
arise a variety of transferable commodities, and a succession of 
different wants before such necessity can have existence. 
But as time hurries on, and the nation gathers strength, and war 
obliges intercourse with other nations, the people's wants insen- 
sibly increase and certain necessities stealthily creep in, aura leni, 
as it were, amongst which that of a more frequent interchange of 
commodities is always in the van, and the convenience not to say 
necessity of adopting some substance to facilitate the general 
transfer of services and commodities, and to be a measure of 
value and an evidence of debt, as obviously arises in the advancing 
tide of that nation's knowledge, as motion is created by force, and 
