highest unit in the Irish system, the cumhal, which represented the value of three cows or three ounces of silver, was neither more nor less than an ancilla (or ordinary slave-woman): the tenfold of this tael was the highest unit employed for either gold or silver by the most advanced peoples in this region, and is very well known as the nên or bar. All other goods were long appraised by measurement, the lowest unit of capacity being the cocoa-nut or the joint of the bamboo, the former known certainly to the Cambodians, the latter to the Chinese, whilst both are equally familiar to the Malays. The weight of the contents of the bamboo or cocoa-nut was presently taken, the standard employed being the tael, or highest unit yet employed for the precious metals. The weight of the contents would depend on the nature of the substance or liquid employed, for instance rice or some other kind of grain, or water. Thus the Chinese equate their catty to 16 taels; no doubt too convention came in at a later stage, and even though the contents might not actually weigh 16 taels, it was found convenient for practical purposes to regard some suitable multiple of the tael, such as 16, as the legal weight of the catty. A similar process was carried out in the case of the picul in the more advanced communities; a load was equated to the most convenient multiple of the catty, and as it was found that 100 catties gave a sufficiently near approximation to the ordinary load which a man could carry on his back, 100 catties were made the legal contents of the picul of trade.
We also learned how currency in baser metals such as copper or iron takes its origin. The history of the ordinary copper cash of the Chinese, which can be clearly traced step by step, brings us back to a time when a bronze knife, one of the most requisite articles of daily life, formed the ordinary small currency of the Chinese, just as the Greek obolos originally was an actual spike made of copper or iron, and just as the Bahnars of Annam still use the hoe as their lowest monetary denomination, an implement likewise similarly employed by the Chinese at an early period, as miniature hoes at one time used as true currency put beyond doubt.