The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1868-10-09
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What has Passed f01. .NOsseu.

Many things have been used at different
times as money cowrie shells in Africa,
wampum, or beads made of clam, shells by
the American Indians, soap in Mexico
The Carthagenians used leather rs money,
probably bearing some mark or s.arI.-
Frederick H., at the seige of Nil III, IVY
ing this custom, issued stamp le4thes as
money.
In 1850, John the Good, King of France,
who was taken prisoner by the celebrated
Black Prince and sent to England until
ransomed, also issued leather money, having
o small silver nail in the middle Salt is
the common money in Abyssinia, Goldfish
in Iceland and Newfoundland nLiying
money! slaves and oxen, passed current
in ancient Greece and among the Anglo
Saxons in payment of debts. Adam Smith
says that in his day there was a village in
Scotland where it was not uncommon for
workmen to carry nails instead of money
to the bakers shop and the ale-house.--
Marco Polo found in China, money made
ofbark of the mulberry tree, bearing the
stamp of the sovereign, which it was death
to counterfeit, being the earliest specimen
of paper money. r- -.
Tobacco was generally used as money in
Virginia up to 1860, 81 years after the foun-
dation of that colony, and men bought
wives for such a weight of tobacco; while
in Canada the beayerskin, being the great
staple, was in like manner made unit,
and all transactions were estimated in bea-
YER In 1854 the Legislature of Massachu-
sets enacted that wheat should be received
in payment of all debts, and the Conven-
ton in France, during the Revolution, on
the proposition of Jean Bone Saint Andre,
long discussed the propriety of adopting
wheat as money, as the measure of value of
all things. Platina was coined in Russia
from 1928 to 1916. But the metals best
adapted and most generally used as coin
are copper, nickel, silver and gold; the two
first being now used forcoins ofsman value,
to make change, the two latter commonly
designated "the precious metals" measures
of value and legal tenders. On the conti-
nent of Europe composition of silver and
copper, called bullion, has long been used
for small coins, which are made current at
much higher value than that of the metals
they contain. In China Sycee silver is the
principal currency, and is merely ingot sill
yer of a uniform fneness, paid and received
by weight. Spanish dollars also circulate
there, but only after they have been stamp
ed as proof that they are Of the standard
! fineness. n
AS Asia Minor produced gold, its earli-
est coinage was of that metal Italy and
Sicily possessing copper, bronze was first
coined there. Herodotus says the Lydians
were the first people known to have coined
gold and silver. They had gold coins at
the close of the ninth century B. c., and in
Greece only at the close of the eighth CEN
tury B. G. Servius Tullius, King of Rome,
made the pound weight of copper current
money. The Romans first coined silver2S1
B. c., and gold 297 B. G. Some nations,
although they worked the metals with skill,
seem never to have coined money, and such
coins are known, prior to the English inva-
sion in the twelfth century. hi