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Rh to be eaten without coming in contact with the salt water.

The money current in Colymbia is of three sorts. The lower values, corresponding to our copper coinage, consist of the hard lenticular operculæ that close the openings of certain shell-fish of the genus turbo which abound in the open sea. These discs are engraved by the State with certain elaborate devices, indicating their conventional value. The higher values of money are represented by pearls, which are also procured from the open sea. Numbers of the people are constantly engaged in the pearl-fishery. The value, of each pearl, approximately reckoned by its size, is stamped upon it by the Government mint, and is exchangeable for a given amount of the less valuable money. Lastly, large sums are represented by circular plates of mother-o'-pearl, elaborately engraved by the Government bank, to imitate which is accounted felony and is severely punished.

Banishment to the land for longer or shorter periods is almost the sole method of punishment, besides pecuniary fines.

As the Colymbians have no foreign trade, and no commercial dealings beyond their own community, the coinage with a merely conventional value attached to it answers perfectly. Of course, it would not do for commerce with foreign countries, which would not accept the conventional value put upon their worthless shells by the Colymbians. The pearls, to be sure, possessing an intrinsic value of their own, might pass current abroad, were it not that they are quite disfigured by the Government marks stamped upon them.

The form of government under which the