Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/28

 weighing has been invented; next he estimates his gold by certain natural units of capacity such as a goosequill, and finally fixes the amount of gold which is equivalent to a cow, by setting it in a rude balance against a certain number of natural seeds of plants. Such is the process which history tells us has taken place in the temperate regions of Asia and Europe, Africa and America. Just as it is impossible to learn the history of the growth of the earth's crust by confining our observations to one locality, and as the geologist only succeeds in gaining a true insight into the relations between the various strata by a study of the phenomena of many regions, so we shall only be able to comprehend properly the various stages in the growth of metallic currency and the origin of weight-standards by observing the facts revealed to us in various countries. Whilst in some places we shall meet with but one or two steps, in others we shall find traces of many, though often, broken strata. Like advance, however, seems impossible under the extremes of heat and cold. Hence in the latter regions the conditions of life remain almost unaltered. In the extreme north the rigour of an arctic winter forbids the keeping and rearing of domestic animals, or the cultivation of corn and vegetables. Hence the hunter form of existence remains almost unaltered. The sole or chief wealth of the people consists of the skins of the fur-bearing animals such as the seal, the beaver, the marten, or the fox, or stores of dried fish, which they exchange with traders for a few scant luxuries, or which form their own sustenance and protection against the pitiless frosts and snows.

In these regions therefore we find the skins of certain animals serving as units of account, in spite of the difference in value between those of different quality and rarity. In the Territory of the Hudson's Bay Company, even after the use of coined money had been introduced among the Indians, the skin was still in common use as the money of account. A gun nominally worth forty shillings brought twenty 'skins.' This term is the old one used by the Company. One skin (beaver) is supposed to be worth two shillings, and it represents two martens and so on. "You heard a great deal about skins