Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/178

 actually struck as a small piastre in Cambodia and Siam in imitation of European money. This tical is worth 4 Siamese slings, but the only monetary division of it known in Laos is the local lat or small ingot of copper.

4 copper lats = 1 silver tical (= 4 sling = 3 francs). 4 tical      = 1 damling. 20 damling   = 1 catty (chang). 50 catties   = 1 picul.

The chang or catty of silver is a double one, hence 50 catties of silver are equal to 100 catties of ordinary commercial weight.

The catty of silver thus weighs 1200 grammes instead of 600 grammes.

They likewise use the moeun of silver = 10 changs = 1/5 picul, but more generally the moeun is used as a measure of capacity which contains 20 catties of shelled rice, but as a measure of capacity it varies and is sometimes equal to 20 catties, sometimes to 25 catties of rice. That it really is a measure of capacity incorporated at a later date into the weight system like our own bushels, barrels and quarters, is made probable by the fact that in the provinces of Tonlé, Ropon, and Melou Préy they employ a tramem or bag containing 10 Cambodian catties, and in the province of Siphoum the moeun is sometimes the name given to a bag or pannier of a cubit in depth, and a cubit in width at the mouth. It is usually called kanchoen (pannier), and contains 25 catties of rice, and 36 kanchoen make a cartload.

We learn from another part of Laos an interesting fact which also throws some light on the development of the larger weight units from measures of capacity. For since in some parts of that country the cocoanut is used as the measure of capacity, and as neal, the native Cambodian name for the catty, means simply a cocoanut, it looks as though this was the real origin of the catty universally employed over all Further Asia. This likewise gives us the reason why the catty of silver is twice the weight of a catty of rice. If a weight unit is derived from a measure of capacity, according to the nature of the sub