still less by those for whom they work, is of the first importance. Many a good book is mercilessly sacrificed by an incompetent binder; persons of fastidious taste will prefer the servi ces of one who is possessed of artistic taste and feeling.

Here, then, we finish with the binder, as he finishes his book, and here also we reluctantly conclude our chapter upon Bookcraft-a theme of exhaustless interest to all who have any affinity of taste for books and the intellectual sweets they con tain-since our too lavish indulgence in such refined epicurism might challenge our mental digestion too severely. We there fore offer a change by way of dessert.

THE question proposed by little Paul, in Dombey and Son, is suggested by the caption of our chapter-"What's money?" The reply of many would doubtless be the same as that returned

to the young querist referred to a mere mercantile onenamely, that it is currency, specie, and bank-notes, or gold, silver, and copper. But this did not suffice for little Paul; he repeated his inquiry—“I mean, what's money after all?" This is the question we propose to discuss in an illustrative way. First as to its material. Gold and silver, styled the precious metals-are both pure, ductile, and malleable, and unaffected by most conditions of atmosphere. They are of intrinsic and positive worth, and were therefore adopted as the standards of value, to represent all commercial exchanges.

The Numismatic Journal states, in reference to the attempt to establish the true origin of coins, that according to the Parian Chronicle, a record of the third century before Christ, Phiedon, king of Argos, in order to facilitate commerce, stamped silver money in the island of Egina, in the year before Christ, 895. Now as Homer existed immediately prior to this epoch, and makes no mention of coined money, whilst he does mention the system of barter, we may infer that it was unknown in his time; for it is impossible to imagine a writer, by whom no art or science has been overlooked, to have passed over so useful an invention as stamped coin, had it existed. In the time of Lycurgus, which followed that of Homer-certainly not later than a century, though there is some difficulty in ascertaining a more positive data, it is equally certain that gold and silver coin, as money, existed in Greece, as proved by his law prohibiting their use in Sparta, and substituting iron probably rings, similar to the iron ring money of the early Celtic nations, of which specimens have been discovered in Ireland. This brings the introduction of coins between the epochs of Homer and Lycurgus, in fact to the precise period assigned to the invention of Phiedon; and the coins of Egina, from the rudeness of their devices, and imperfection of their execution, may fairly be supposed to be of the age in question. This, compared with the assertion of the Parian Chronicle, the silence of Homer, and the law of Lycurgus, seems fairly to

authenticate the claim of Phiedon, and to establish the origin of the first current money as having occurred nearly nine hundred years before the Christian era, in the island of Ægina.

Numa Pompilius caused money to be made of wood and leather-hence the Latin word, Pecunia: afterwards bits of copper, marked according to weight, were stamped with figures or images. Money, as to its name, is derived from Juno Moneta, the Roman Temple where it was coined 260, B. C.

The most ancient Jewish coins represented a pot of manna on one side, and Aaron's blossoming rod on the other; the inscription being in Samaritan.

Jewish shekels were 1s. 7d.; a talent was 3,000 shekels, or £342 3s. 9d. sterling.

The Egyptians did not coin till the accession of the Ptolemies, nor the Jews till the age of the Maccabees; the most ancient known coins are the Macedonian, of the date of about 500 years before Christ.

Athelstan first established a uniform coin in England. The Egbert silver coins were shillings, thrimsas, pennies, halflings, and feorthlings. Gold coin was introduced by Edward III., in six-shilling pieces, nearly equal in size, but not in weight, to modern sovereigns. Nobles followed at 6s. 8d., and became the lawyers' fee. Edward IV. coined angels, with a figure of Michael and the Dragon.

Money had its equivalent in salt in Abyssinia-a small shell called cowery, in Hindostan-dried fish in Iceland-and wampum among the North American Indians.* Nails were

*The first money in use in New York, then New Netherlands, and also in New England, was Seawant, Wampum, or Peague, for it was known by all those names. Seawant was the generic name of this Indian money, of which there were two kinds; wompam (commonly called wampum), which signifies, white, and suckanhock, sucki signifying black. Wampum, or wampum-peague, or simply peague, was also understood, although improperly, among the Dutch and English, as expressive of generic denomination, and in that light was used by them in their writings and public documents. Wampum, or white money, was originally made from the stem or stock of the metean-hock, or periwinkle; suckanhock, or black money, was manufactured from the inside of the shell of the quahaug (Venus Mercenaria), commonly called the hard

formerly in use in Scotland, as we learn from Smith's Wealth of Nations.

The three principal mints in the world are those of London, of the United States, and of Paris. Their total coinage during 1853, according to the London Economist, was as follows, in pounds sterling: Paris, £14,901,702; London, £12,666,008; United States, £11,101,120. The total amount of this in dollars is $193,644,150.*

To lack money, it has been remarked, is to lack a passport or admission ticket into the pleasant places of God's earth-to much that is glorious and wonderful in nature, and nearly all that is rare, curious, and enchanting in art.

Hood's lines suggest a little moralizing :

"Gold! gold! gold! gold!

Bright and yellow, hard and cold,
Molten, graven, hammered, rolled;
Heavy to get, and light to hold;

Hoarded, bartered, bought and sold;

Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled;

Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old,
To the very verge of the church-yard mould ;
Price of many a crime untold;

Gold! gold! gold! gold!"

What has not man sacrificed upon the altar of Moloch? his time, his health, his friendships, his reputation, his conscience,

clam, a round thick shellfish that buries itself a little way in the sand in salt water. The Indians broke off about half an inch of the purple color of the inside, and converted it into beads. These, before the introduction of awls and thread, were bored with sharp stones, and strung upon the sinews of animals, and when interwoven to the breadth of the hand, more or less, were called a belt of seawant, or wampum.-Denton's New York. Mr. Jacob has estimated the existing gold of the world, previously to 1848 (fourfifths of it existing in manufactured articles) at £650,000,000, Add our new acquisition of £55,000,000, and we have a present world-wealth of gold of £705,000,000. Taking the cubic yard of gold at £2,000,000, which it is in round numbers, all the goldof the world at this estimate might, if melted into ingots, be contained in a cellar twenty-four feet square, and sixteen feet high. All our boasted wealth already obtained from California and Australia would go into an iron safe, nine feet square, and nine feet high. So small is the cube of yellow metal that has set populations on the march, and roused the world to wonder!