Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/39

Rh other population. Together with the Indians they form a novel element in the social life.

The industrial prosperity of a communtycommunity [sic] is inseparably connected with the question of a medium of exchange and standard of value. Money is indispensable to the existence of industrial life in any important sense, and the amount and the kind of money means progress or decline and marks the community as industrially sound or unsafe. In the early days of the fur trade exchanges were made in the terms of the skin of the beaver, the animal most numerous in the valley of the Columbia. When the agricultural resources were utilized the bushel of wheat took its place beside the beaver skin as a standard of value. Convenience soon led to the use of orders upon the Hudson Bay Company or the stores of the agricultural settlement. They served the purposes of a medium of exchange for the simple transactions of an early time. Metallic money was scarce at first. Occasionally a barrel of silver would be brought into the region to pay the crew of some ship. Much of it would get into circulation and thus be added to medium of exchange. Here and there could be found the coins of Mexico and Peru. With the discovery of gold in California the dust became abundant. It was not, however, able to command as much in exchange as the same amount of gold in the form of coin. This fact led to one of the most interesting events in the monetary and industrial history of Oregon, the coining of the "Beaver money' in 1849. An act of the Provisional legislature was passed authorizing the coinage of gold. Before it could be carried into effect the Provisional government was supplanted by the territorial, and the plan seemed to be defeated. Some, however, were not willing to see it fail, and formed a private company to undertake the enterprise. As it had