one valuation nor the other are the calculations consistent in any of
the texts, except Ramusio's.[1] This consistency does not give any
greater weight to Ramusio's reading, because we know that version to have
been _edited_, and corrected when the editor thought it necessary: but I
adopt his valuation, because we shall find other grounds for preferring
it. The unit of the _toman_ then is = 8 _saggi_.

The Venice saggio was one-sixth of a Venice ounce. The Venice mark of 8
ounces I find stated to contain 3681 grains troy;[2] hence the _saggio_ =
76 grains. But I imagine the term to be used by Polo here and in other
Oriental computations, to express the Arabic _miskal_, the real weight of
which, according to Mr. Maskelyne, is 74 grains troy. The _miskal_ of gold
was, as Polo says, something more than a ducat or sequin, indeed, weight
for weight, it was to a ducat nearly as 1.4: 1.

Eight _saggi_ or _miskals_ would be 592 grains troy. The tael is 580, and
the approximation is as near as we can reasonably expect from a
calculation in such terms.

Taking the silver tael at 6_s._ 7_d._, the gold tael, or rather the
_ting_, would be = 3_l._ 5_s._ 10_d._; the _toman_ = 32,916_l._ 13_s._
4_d._; and the whole salt revenue (80 tomans) = 2,633,333_l._; the revenue
from other sources (210 tomans) = 6,912,500_l._; total revenue from Kinsay
and its province (290 tomans) = 9,545,833_l._ A sufficiently startling
statement, and quite enough to account for the sobriquet of Marco Milioni.

Pauthier, in reference to this chapter, brings forward a number of
extracts regarding Mongol finance from the official history of that
dynasty. The extracts are extremely interesting in themselves, but I
cannot find in them that confirmation of Marco's accuracy which M.
Pauthier sees.

First as to the salt revenue of Kiang-Che, or the province of Kinsay. The
facts given by Pauthier amount to these: that in 1277, the year in which
the Mongol salt department was organised, the manufacture of salt amounted
to 92,148 _yin_, or 22,115,520 _kilos.;_ in 1286 it had reached 450,000
_yin_, or 108,000,000 _kilos.;_ in 1289 it fell off by 100,000 _yin_.

The price was, in 1277, 18 _liang_ or taels, in _chao_ or paper-money of
the years 1260-64 (see vol. i. p. 426); in 1282 it was raised to 22 taels;
in 1284 a permanent and reduced price was fixed, the amount of which is
not stated.

M. Pauthier assumes as a mean 400,000 _yin_, at 18 taels, which will give