CHAPTER VII. The Weight Systems of China and Further Asia.

an incalculable time in the form of ingots of rectangular shape, and of very accurately fixed dimensions. The maximum unit employed in commercial relations between China, Cochin-China, Annam and Cambodia is the nên or bar. It is of course among her less advanced neighbours that we can best see how the system developed and worked. For whilst China herself now reckons exclusively by the tael or ounce, Annam and Cambodia still employ ingots of fixed weights and dimensions as metal units almost to the present time. Thus when Msg. Taberdier in 1838 published his account of the money of Annam, they had no coins except the ordinary cash or sapec with a square hole in its centre, and which is there made of zinc and called dong⁴, they had no coinage in the proper sense of the term. However they employed ingots of gold and silver of a parallelopiped shape. Five sizes of ingots were employed for both gold and silver alike.