The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-08-05
the MONEY OF THE UNITED STATES.
AMONG TIE eREEMBAoxs.
BY A. D. RICHARDSON.


write its history It embraces in hundreds of
forms the product of mine, forest, field, and
factory. Il is comprehensive as a cyclopadia
and fascinating as a romance.
The currency of barbarism is rude and va
rious. We know next TO nothing of that early
semi-oiviized American race whose very name
has perished, though our valleys and prairies
once teemed with its living milliens. Their
stone cities in Arizona and New Mexico, their
ten thousand earth monuments in the Missis-
sipui Valley, crumble daily under the tooth of
Time and razure of Oblivion. But their money,
and that of. the Indians who succeeded them,
usually in rudely Ornamented disks shaped
like our coin, comprised bone, shell, coal,
terra Gotta mica lead, iron, copper, gold,
agate. peari Jasper. chalcedony, and cornelian.
Our great New Almaden quicksilver mine
was known to Aboriginals as "the Cave of Red
Rarth." The crude cinnebar (of which YER
million is made) passed among them as cur
rency, and was precious for painting their
dusky cheeks
On the Pacific, red men bartered their
choicest otter robes for a string of blue beads;
on the Atlantic they sold half State for belt
of wampum. They drove out the mound
builders to the Southwest. Now, in turn, we
exterminate them as the whirligg of Time
brings in his revenges.
The wealth of earliest civilization is focks
and herds; hence our adjective "pecuniary,
from pecuS-"cattle. Homer mentions that
the armor of Diomed cost but nine oxen,
while the lavish Glaucus paid hundred for
his. Britons, at the Norman invasion, had
two kinds of money, which they classed as
"dead'' and Giving" The first comprised
gold, brass, tin, and iron; the second, cattle
and SLAVES. Our Southrons thrived upon
''living" currency till they fired upon Sumter
and broke their bank.
One step in advance was leather the money
of the Carthagenians. A few thousands in one
dollar notes of sole-leather must have required
awarehouse for storage and ship for trans
portation. Was the ofice-seeker of Carthage
as eager to become Superintendent of the
Public Tannery as ours is to be Director of
the National Mint Nails passed as money
in Scotland; salt in Abyssinia dried fish in Ire
land; and mulberry bark in 'the far Cathay."
The latter, in circular pieces, bore the stamp
of the sovereign; to counterfeit or refuse it
was death.
On the Pacific coast, thirty years ago, hides
were cash, and known as California bank
notes" In Oregon, wheat was legal tender
at 81 per bushel. New settlements grow so
fast that the little money brought by immi-
grants is soon exhausted, compelling the use
of some local substitute. In Massachusetts,
until 1648, corn, live stock, wampum, and
musket balls were all legalized currency.
The bullets were required to be 'full-bore,"
anu pdSseu lOr one penny edOn' vi WdLhpuIu,
four beads were penny. No one was COM
PEELED to receive either in sums exceeding
twelve pence. California, Oregon, Utah, and
Colorado had their native gold, coined for con-
Venience in private mints. Cincinnati adopted
raccoon skins; St. Louis, furs other Western
colonies land warrants; and old Virginia,
tobacco, which pioneer planter wisely invested
in the purchase of wives.
Indian traders, at their forts in the far West,
10 flo ffo1o
of sugar. Now, robes are cheaper in New
York than on the great plains. Texan traders
afforded striking illustration of the way civili
cation traffics with barbarism. They put the
furs an d skins of the savage into one scale,
and their own muscle into the other, asserting
that the white mans hand weighs half a
pound They exchanged, ounce for ounce,
those strips of shining copper, with which the
Indian delights to encircle wrist and ankle, for
gold, silver, and emerald ornaments and
sacred vessels, of which Mexican churches
had been despoiled. But in the long run the
Comanche usually avenged with the scalping-
knife his wrongs at the weighing beam.
Precious metals as money are older than
history. Two thousand years before Christ,
Abraham, the Chaldean shepherd, whose
children have never lost his faith nor his thrift
through hundred and fourteen generations,
returned from Egypt, "very rich in cattle, in
silver, and in gold" Afterwards, says the
Biblical record, he bought the cave of Mach
pelah--where his bones where to rest beside
those of Sarah, the wife of his youth-for
'tfour hundred shekels of silver, current money
aoih the merchant" The Catholic version has
it, "common, current money!" The shekel
was about 60 cents of our gold. 1t was weighed,
not counted; for there were no mints in those
days.
Herodotus asserts that coinage originated
with the Lydians. The worlds coins, since,
have been like leaves of autumn. Most are
extinct; but the British Museum preserves
more than a hundred and twenty thousand
varieties. The Paris collection is still greater,
and increased by two or three thousand every
year, Our country has no large public accu-
mulation but the Cabinet of the Philadelphia
Mint contains many worth studying. Its
medallion memorials of Washington number
2l6; though not one l believe representing
him in battle. 1t embraces many antique
specimens Here are the selfsame coins which
plous ancients placed between the cold lips OF
their dead to pay old Charon for ferriage over
the styx' Here is that very image and super.
scrlpton OF Cesar which the Jud;ean Carpenter
pointed out to the fishermen and tent-makers
following him. Here are faces of rulers and
captains down to our day from Alexander o
Macedon, and the mightiest Julius who he
strOde this narrow world like Colossus,
The courteous officer now at the head of tbe
Mint, in response to my questions. states tbf
interesting features of this collection so oearIJ
and succnctly, that take the liberty of pivinS
his entire letter.
MINT OF THE URITED STATES, PH1LADE1pur,
July 23.-Sr:-Your inquiries have given occasion I
lowing results:-
AMERicGN-R Regular United States eonage..a.o57
..IoI nv mt al nd Gpl d-rorgf