, like tobacco in the colony of Virginia and
dried hides on the plains of South America. In most of pioneer America the
hunters' pelts have served the same purpose, the average "coonskin" having
a value which all could understand. As communities became more wealthy the
display of wealth in ornaments made of precious metals and in precious
stones has led to the use of these as standards of value. American Indians
used their wampum, and African tribes employed peculiar shells. But as
commerce increased, embracing wider regions, gold and silver became the
staple article of value everywhere, since these, so easily tested for
purity, could have their value estimated definitely by weight. Thus the
standard unit of value has been definitely connected with standard
weights.

_Coinage._--Gradually these weights, for greater ease of transfer and for
clearer understanding of values, became the basis of coinage. The stamp of
the coiner became a certificate of quality and quantity, and finally, as
in the case of weights and measures, governments assumed the whole
responsibility for fixing the weight and fineness of coins, and reduced
all coinage to system, that every citizen might know the value of the unit
in which he estimates any article of commerce.

The early coins were definite weights of gold, silver or copper, and in
many countries coins still bear the names that indicate their original
weight. Yet arbitrary rulers have often sought to cheat their subjects by
issuing coins of lighter weight and baser metal. The French livre, now the
franc, is one seventy-second of its original value. English coins were
debased ten times between the years 1299 and 1601 to exactly one-third of
their original value. The loss from such debasement falls almost wholly
upon the poor, whose wages fail to buy the usual food and clothing. Henry
VIII reduced the coins of his realm again and again, until it would have
taken five years' revenue of Elizabeth's reign to restore the currency.
Elizabeth chose to take the standards as she found them, but to establish
an absolute degree of purity and fix by law the weight of each coin in the
system. The standard of purity since maintained in England is 22 carats,
or eleven-twelfths fine, and weights have been maintained in spite of
several efforts to reduce them. Other nations have taken similar steps
with varying standards of purity: .835 in the Latin union, .9 in the
United States, and over .96 in most coina