Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/755

Rh annually held at Nizhni Novgorod in Russia, the price of tea has first to be made known before the prices, of other commodities are fixed, it thus becoming a standard by which all exchanges of merchandise are regulated. The skins of wild animals were used as money by the ancient Russians and by some of the Indians on this continent; and even by the people of Illinois at an early day raccoon and deer skins were so used. In 1574 quantities of pasteboard were coined in Holland. Of the aboriginal money of the American continent, from the mounds in and adjoining the valley of the Mississippi, specimens have been obtained composed of lignite, coal, bone, shell, terra cotta, mica, pearl, carnelian, chalcedony, agate, jasper, native gold, silver, copper, lead, and iron, which were fashioned into forms evincing considerable skill in art. Cocoanuts were used as money in certain parts of the American continent when the Europeans first visited it. Wampum was used by the Indians as currency, and about 1635 was the prevailing one among the colonists of Massachusetts, was a legal tender, and was even counterfeited. About the same time corn and beans were used, and indeed a general barter currency was in vogue, and musket balls passed for change at a farthing apiece, and were a legal tender for sums under one shilling. Codfish was also used. The accounts of the New Netherlands were in 1662 kept in wampum and beaver skins; and in Virginia about the beginning of the 18th century the receipts, issued for tobacco deposited in warehouses passed current as money. Adam Smith mentions that in Scotland about 1776 it was customary for workmen to carry nails as money to the bake shop and the ale house. Notched wood was used at one time in England. “In the British West India Islands,” says Mr. Madden, author of “Coins of the Jews,” “pins, a slice of bread, a pinch of snuff, a dram of whiskey, and in the central part of South America soap, chocolate, cocoanuts, eggs,” &c., serve the same purpose. Association with his fellow man being one of the first and most imperative needs of man, he thus finds, amid a variety of things, some one or more which will serve as the instrument of association.—R. H. Patterson, an eminent Scotch writer, has traced the origin of metallic money in the East through the tendency of man in the then primitive state of society to accumulate the precious metals at a time when there was little wealth beyond that of flocks and herds, crops of grain, and other personal property; and he goes on to say: “Next, as all men valued these metals, kings began to collect their revenues in that form. They coined the metal and made it receivable as tribute or taxes. This fully established the exchangeable value of the precious metals. It created a new demand for them, it rendered them indispensable in a department of national life where they had not previously been required; thenceforth all men needed

them every year to pay the king's dues. Thus they became a circulating medium. A man who had more oxen or grain than he needed for his own use, sold those commodities to others, receiving coins in return, which coins he could store for ever, which were useful to pay taxes, and when he so needed to purchase the labor or productions of others.” “But,” he adds, “the invention of money by no means put an end to payments in kind and the process of barter. It only supplemented them. Even in England until the reign of Edward I. the taxes were paid in kind to a large extent, if not entirely; and to a much later date military or other personal service to the state was accepted in lieu of taxes of any kind.” As monarchs originally established coinage, so throughout all subsequent time the monarch or the state has claimed as among the highest of his or its prerogatives all control over “the current money of the realm.” With coins this function has almost universally been directly exercised by the supreme authority, while with circulating notes, the prerogative still being claimed, the exercise of the function of issue has generally been delegated to banks. The earliest recorded mention of the precious metals is found in Gen. xiii. 2, when Abraham returned from Egypt “very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.” In xvii. 12 we find the expression, “he that is born in the house or bought with money of any stranger.” The earliest account of a purchase and sale is given in Gen. xxiii., when Sarah the wife of Abraham being dead, he bought from Ephron a field in Machpelah for a burial place for her, and he “weighed to Ephron the silver which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.” It will be observed that this current money was not counted, but was weighed, the money of that day being pieces of silver cut to certain weights, as shekels and talents, but not coined.—The invention of coinage has been attributed to the wife of Midas, a legendary king of Phrygia, although it is quite probable that this was merely the introduction of the art from some other country more advanced in civilization. By some of the highest authorities the balance of testimony at present existing, so far as it can be traced, is regarded as in favor of the Lydians (about 1200 B. C.) as the inventors, and with this view both Herodotus and Xenophanes of Colophon agree. In the opinion of Mr. Madden, the earliest electrum coins have the appearance of greater antiquity than any in the whole Greek series; and it seems more probable that the invention was of Asiatic origin, as the part of Asia to which this electrum class belongs was at this early period subject to the Lydian kings. By some Greek writers the invention is attributed to Phidon, king of Argos in the 8th century B. C., and by others to the people of Ægina. Phidon is now believed only to have introduced coinage into Greece. We are assured