| Show A y i Z 4 1 1 A T U N salt merchant of morocco whose bait is also used for money prepared b kiy the national geographic 6 society 04 ty W D 0 abyssinia which has ETHIOPIA demoney hitherto got along without a money of its own Is taking steps toward establishing a currency and coinage system on a gold basis most of the elti citizens zens are now using tor for their purchases bars of salt rifle cartridges and even empty bottles and tin cans the money necessary in international ter dealings has been furnished in limited supply by marin harin theresa thaders Th Tb alers introduced a number ot of years ago from austria and by a small email amount of paper motley money issued by a branch of the national bank of egypt established in addis ababa capital of ethiopia this bank Is to be purchased by the ethiopian government as a first step in its program to met up a currency and coinage system when ethiopia issues her first bank notes and certificates these bits of inked paper will represent the latest link in the very long chain of the evolution of money in earliest times man traded or bartered one product or article for another but the need for or a common denominator 0 of f v value a lue became apparent even with the first glimmerings glimme rings of civilization tile the skins of animals served in this way when man was still ft a hunter while shells became the first money of tribes living near the sen sea when man settled down and became an agriculturist or a herdsman grain and cattle c came ame into use its as his measures ot of values valdes the ox was big money the sheep small change there were certain disadvantages in using live as money for one thing it might walk walh away lu in tho night might for another it consumed much provender there were difficulties difficult les about very small email change for the purchase of such edibles as kettles of fish call and messes of pottage the human geography of the near east bast which had been pastoral about this time got an industrial urge A way had been found of extracting n R metal from the earth of the island of CT cyprus handily set in the eastern mediterranean the romans later twisted the name of this island lir in such a way that the modern word 0 copper wits was derived from it how copper became money copper pots began to appeal and tike like cattle were universally prized merchants would exchange whatever they had in their stalls tor for copper pots and the demand tor for them was mor more nearly universal than for any other object the copper put pot was therefore money then into this region came one imbued with an idea of importance instead of presenting pots for use in facilitating c cili barter he be would tender tile the copper of which they were made lie ile would offer it in a convenient form ina made de up into a strip which he called obo liis no definite idea a of its size survives but it was said that six made a handful the marked a great advance toward the use of coln coin the scene shifted to the west italy as it awoke from barbarism barbarian adopted a unit of copper as a measure of value it called the unit as a roman itoman pound of 12 pr ounces and it crime came into general use rise copper served the purpose of money because of its intrinsic value the as had tile the value of a pound of copper human nature being the same then as now it soon came to pass that people made the as in a weight a little less than a pound and profited to the extent of the metal thus saved they learned to mix certain quantities of baser and cheaper metals with the copper and their currency deteriorated thus a step toward the development of actual money was forced on the nations governing powers found it necessary to step into the breach to test metals used as money to put their stamps guaranteeing quality and weight upon them and by this avenue copper coins arrived As the cen centuries passed in the mediterranean area copper became plentiful and Vs Us purchasing power decreased rome was getting much of the earth of cyprus thus it developed that an average householder of ancient inome going to market to buy for a feast day would need to pack a donkey to bear the weight of the copper tor for his bis shopping the metal came to be too bulky to in proportion to its value ie yet it held KB its place until another metal appeared i that hat better served money purposes that aliat metal was silver the map ot of the civilized world was expanding spain had begun to produce civilization moved westward and charlemagne established an empire of the french in the eighth century on a silver standard lie ile formally decreed that the pound ot of silver should be the basic measure ot of value and a continent accepted his edict so it happens that in france today the word argent means money although its literal significance Is silver money of england money history began to be written in another geographical area the english began to talk of the pound in designating a money unit this la Is the silver pound ot of charlemagne originally pennies were made from the pound ot of silver and alth although pugh tile the pound sterll sterling ng has become a measure ot of value and not of weight the relation to the old value standard continues pence to the pound sterling the english word shilling has a geographical origin that eliat Is quite different it was first used by tile the blonde barbarians of the north these warriors and their opponents given to wearing rings and arm bands made of silver or gold after battles the rings ranga of th the e s slain I 1 a I 1 were highly prized by the victors and annu were gathered and properly distributed by an official who had charge of tl this ils division of spoils uc ile was known as the ring breaker and was actually the first treasury official of 0 f these northern tribes the rings were so made that they broke up In into bits of a somewhat uniform size one fragment was called a in the north it wax wa an early form of money and from it came the shilling chilling so dear to the english heart today the world was short of actual money from caesar to columbus there was little progress during that long stretch and there appears to be some soundness la in the theory that the absence sence of a circulating medium of sum dent quantity to make development possible was in part the reason for the stagnation yet despite its scarcity money events were taking place a bout about the map of europe and icem eceil in retrospect to have been in preparation for the corning coming of better days origin of the dollar toward the end of the time ot of shortage there appeared in the interior of medieval europe an individual who was to write a chapter of money history that has come down strangely into modern times and to give a new nation ot of the west a currency unit that was to have a profound effect this man made the first dollar in all the world and gave it a name which though the etymology Is not no apparent at a glance blance becomes upon examination the lineal ancestor of the word dollar the count of Se lilick for such was waa his title dwelt in st joachimsthal joachims dale a mining region of bohemia the patron saint of the community was st joachim here the count of in appropriated a silver mine As hla his retainers took out the precious metal the master laid his bis finger to his tern pie and considered the purpose to which he should put it lie he must have been a man of perception tor for ha h seemed to realize that he dwelt in a money hungry world and that his all ver vcr would serve best it if made into coin at any rate ho he devised a new ono oil IIII his bis own on its face appeared a reproduction ot of st joachim and it was named after that personage and the community which gave it birth JoachIms thaler it was the first dollar now note the evolution of the word dollar from this its polysyllabic ancestor when tho the found its way into medieval germany it was warmly welcomed A practical people however soon tired of the length of its name and by a judicious dropping of syllables it became the thaler the word in that formatin form stin survives in germany when the thaler tealer passed into the netherlands its pronunciation was waa somewhat changed ther it was called the daler then it crossed to england where by use of the broad a daler become became dollar under this modified name and geographically transplanted the of the count of has grown and prospered |
