Is it possible to suppose all these extraordinary coincidences to be the result of accident? We might just as well say that the similarities between the American and English forms of government were not the result of relationship or descent, but that men placed in similar circumstances had spontaneously and necessarily reached the same results.
CHAPTER VI.
GOLD AND SILVER THE SACRED METALS OF ATLANTIS.
Money is the instrumentality by which man is lifted above the limitations of barter. Baron Storch terms it “the marvellous instrument to which we are indebted for our wealth and civilization.”
It is interesting to inquire into the various articles which have been used in different countries and ages as money. The following is a table of some of them:
Articles of Utility.
-----------------------------+ | India | Cakes of tea. |
-----------------------------+ | China | Pieces of silk. |
-----------------------------+ | Abyssinia | Salt. |
-----------------------------+ | Iceland and Newfoundland | Codfish. |
-----------------------------+ | Illinois (in early days) | Coon-skins. |
-----------------------------+ | Bornoo (Africa) | Cotton shirts. |
-----------------------------+ | Ancient Russia | Skins of wild animals. |
-----------------------------+ | West India Islands (1500) | Cocoa-nuts. |
-----------------------------+ | Massachusetts Indians | Wampum and musket-balls. |
-----------------------------+ | Virginia (1700) | Tobacco. |
-----------------------------+ | British West India Islands | Pins, snuff, and whiskey. |
-----------------------------+ | Central South America | Soap, chocolate, and eggs. |
-----------------------------+ | Ancient Romans | Cattle. |
-----------------------------+ | Ancient Greece | Nails of copper and iron. |
-----------------------------+ | The Lacedemonians | Iron. |
-----------------------------+ | The Burman Empire | Lead. |
-----------------------------+ | Russia (1828 to 1845) | Platinum. |
-----------------------------+ | Rome (under Numa Pompilius) | Wood and leather. |
-----------------------------+ | Rome (under the Caesars) | Land. |
-----------------------------+ | Carthaginians | Leather. |
-----------------------------+ | Ancient Britons Cattle, | slaves, brass, and iron. |
-----------------------------+ | England (under James II.) | Tin, gun-metal, and pewter. |
-----------------------------+ | South Sea Islands | Axes and hammers. |
----------------------------- +
Articles of Ornament.
----------------+ | Ancient Jews | Jewels. |
----------------+ | The Indian Islands and Africa | Cowrie shells, |
----------------+
Conventional Signs.
----------------------------+ | Holland (1574) | Pieces of pasteboard. |
----------------------------+ | China (1200) | Bark of the mulberry-tree. |
----------------------------+
It is evident that every primitive people uses as money those articles upon which they set the highest value—as cattle, jewels, slaves, salt, musket-balls, pins, snuff, whiskey, cotton shirts, leather, axes, and hammers; or those articles for which there was a foreign demand, and which they could trade off to the merchants for articles of necessity—as tea, silk, codfish, coonskins, cocoa-nuts, and tobacco.
Then there is a later stage, when the stamp of the government is impressed upon paper, wood, pasteboard, or the bark of trees, and these articles are given a legal-tender character.
When a civilized nation comes in contact with a barbarous people they seek to trade with them for those things which they need; a metal-working people, manufacturing weapons of iron or copper, will seek for the useful metals, and hence we find iron, copper, tin, and lead coming into use as a standard of values—as money; for they can always be converted into articles of use and weapons of war. But when we ask bow it chanced that gold and silver came to be used as money, and why it is that gold is regarded as so much more valuable than silver, no answer presents itself. It was impossible to make either of them into pots or pans, swords or spears; they were not necessarily more beautiful than glass or the combinations of tin and copper. Nothing astonished the American races more than the extraordinary value set upon gold and silver by the Spaniards; they could not understand it. A West Indian savage traded a handful of gold-dust with one of the sailors accompanying Columbus for some tool, and then ran for his life to the woods lest the sailor should repent his bargain and call him back. The Mexicans had coins of tin shaped like a letter T. We can understand this, for tin was necessary to them in hardening their bronze implements, and it may have been the highest type of metallic value among them. A round copper coin with a serpent stamped on it was found at Palenque, and T-shaped copper coins are very abundant in the ruins of Central America. This too we can understand, for copper was necessary in every work of art or utility.
