Page:Tales in Political Economy by Millicent Garrett Fawcett.djvu/68

 their unsuitability was made evident in another wayway. [sic]

If Mrs. Collins sent her little girl to buy one reel of thread, price 1d., she would have to give $1/12$th part of a cocoa-nut in exchange for it. Now every part of a cocoa-nut has some value, and as the value of every part, except the shell, gets less from the time the shell is opened, it was very difficult to use the nuts to make small payments. If a cocoa-nut were divided into twelve equally valuable parts, every one of these, except the shell, would be less valuable a day after it was opened than when first it was divided, because the pieces exposed to the air would become first dry and chippy, and then positively bad. All these inconveniences were so great, that the Pleasanters determined they would go on with their old plan of making their exchanges by barter, until they could find some substance which would be more suitable to use as money than the cocoa-nuts. About this time fortune was once more their friend. One day a young lad, who was a splendid swimmer, was diving on a side of the island where the coast was