HOW WERE PRIMITIVE WEIGHT UNITS FIXED?
Ordiar ex minimis.
_Carm. de ponderibus._
We have seen that the Chinese system of weights is based upon natural
seeds of plants, and we have actually found the wild hillsmen of Annam
and Laos weighing their gold dust by grains of maize and rice. But it may
be urged by the advocates of a Babylonian scientific origin based on the
one-fifth of the cube of the royal ell, which in turn is based upon the
sun’s apparent diameter, that the Chinese names of weights are merely
conventional terms taken from the name of certain seeds, and on the other
hand that the mere fact that a very barbarous people like the Bahnars
of Annam weigh their gold dust by grains of rice is no evidence that
people in a higher stage of culture were content with such rude metric
standards. I propose to show in this chapter that it has been the actual
practice of peoples as far advanced in civilization as the ancient Greeks
or Italians, to employ seeds as weights down to the present day in Asia,
that it was the general practice in the middle ages, that it was likewise
the practice of the Romans of the empire, of the Greeks, and finally that
such too was the practice of the Assyrians themselves at a period long
before the bronze Lion weights were ever cast, or the stone Duck weights
were carved. If I succeed in proving this proposition, the doctrine that
the art of weighing was scientific must give place to the contention that
it was purely empirical.
As we have found among the barbarians of Asia the first beginnings of the
art of weighing by the employment of grains of rice and maize, it is best
for us to take first in order some other Asiatic countries lying towards
the same region.
The great islands of the Indian Archipelago, singularly rich in all
endowments of nature, have for ages enjoyed a high degree of culture.
Conveniently placed, they have received all the advantages of contact
with the civilization of China, India, and even that of the Arabs from
the distant west of Asia. Never were people more favourably situated
for obtaining foreign systems of weights and measures, if they felt so
disposed, than the Malays of Java and Sumatra and the other islands of
the Indian Archipelago. That admirable observer, John Crawfurd, writing
in 1820 says[225]: “In the native measures everything is estimated by
bulk and not by weight. Among a rude people corn would necessarily be
the first commodity that would render it a matter of necessity and
convenience to fix some means for its exchange or barter. The manner in
which this is effected among the Javanese will point out the imperfection
of their methods. Rice, the principal grain, is in reaping nipped off
the stalk with a few inches of the straw, tied up in sheaves or parcels
and then housed or sold, or otherwise disposed of. The quantity of rice
in the straw which can be clenched between the thumb and the middle
finger is called a _gagam_ or handful, and forms the lowest denomination.
Three _gagams_ or handfuls make one _pochong_, the quantity which can be
clenched between both hands joined. This is properly a sheaf. Two sheaves
or _pochongs_ joined together, as is always the case, for the convenience
of being thrown across a stick for transportation, make a double sheaf
or _gedeng_. Five _gedengs_ make a _songga_, the highest measure in some
provinces, or twenty-four make an _hamat_, the more general measure. From
their very nature these measures are indefinite and hardly amount to more
accuracy than we employ ourselves when we speak of sheaves of corn. In
the same district they are tolerably regular in the quantity of grain or
straw they contain, but such is the wide difference between different
districts or provinces, that the same nominal measures are often twice,
nay three times as large in one as in another. For the _hamat_ or
larger measure perhaps about eight hundred pounds avoirdupois might be
considered a fair average for the different provinces of Java. This may
convey some loose notion of the quantities intended to be represented.
For dry and liquid measures they may naturally have recourse to the shell
of the cocoanut and the joint of the bamboo which are constantly at hand.
The first called by the Malays _chupa_ is estimated to be two and a half
pounds avoirdupois. The second is called by some tribes _kulch_ and is
equal to a gallon, but the most common bamboo measure is the _gantung_,
which is twice this amount. To those exact and business-like dealers,
the Chinese, and in a less degree to the Arabs and people of the east
coast of the Indian Peninsula, the Indian islanders are chiefly indebted
for any precision we find in their weights. In all the traffic carried
on between the commercial tribes and foreigners, the Chinese weights,
though occasionally under native names, are constantly referred to. The
lowest of these, called sometimes by the native name of Bungkal, but more
frequently by the Chinese name of Tahil [_tael_], varies from twenty-four
pennyweights nine grains to thirty pennyweights and twenty grains. Ten
of these make a _kati_ [_catty_] or about twenty ounces avoirdupois;
one hundred _katis_ make a _pikul_ or 133⅓ lbs. avoirdupois, and thirty
_pikuls_ make one _koyan_. Of these the _kati_ and the _pikul_, because
they are constantly referred to in considerable mercantile dealings, are
the only well-defined weights. The _koyan_ by some is reckoned at twenty
_pikuls_, by others at twenty-seven, twenty-eight and even at forty. The
Dutch are fond of equalizing it with their own standards and consider it
as equal to a _last_ or two tons.
“The _Bahara_, an Arabic weight, is occasionally used in the weighing of
pepper, but its amount is very indefinite, for in some of the countries
of the Archipelago it amounts to 396 lbs., and in others to 560 lbs.”
Elsewhere he says[226], “The _picul_ is strictly a Chinese weight as
its amount shews, though the term happens in this case to be native. Its
meaning in the vernacular languages is a natural load or burthen, and
when used in this primitive sense it, without reference to the Chinese
weight, is not found to exceed eighty pounds avoirdupois.” This is a fact
of great importance as we shall see when we come to the development of
the _mina_ and _talent_ of Graeco-Asiatic commerce.
Finally Crawfurd says, “The nice question of weighing gold, the only
native commodity which could not be estimated by tale or bulk, has given
rise to the use of weights among the natives themselves. Grains of rice
are still occasionally used in the weighing of gold in the neighbourhood
of the gold mines in Sumatra” (p. 274).
I have quoted at full length these passages in order that the reader
may accept with fuller confidence statements so instructive as regards
the origin of weight, the first object to be weighed, and the origin
of the _picul_, or as we may call it the _talent_ of Eastern Asia.
Nine years before Crawfurd wrote there had appeared William Marsden’s
admirable _History of Sumatra_[227]. He gives us far fuller information
on the subject of gold than Crawfurd has done. Thus he writes: “In
those parts of the country where traffic in this article (gold dust)
is considerable, it is employed as currency instead of coin; every man
carries small scales about him, and purchases are made with it so low
as to the weight of a grain or two of _padi_. Various seeds are used
as gold weights, but more especially these two: the one called _rakat_
or _saga-tim-bañgan_ (_Glycine abrus_ L or _abrus maculatus_ of the
Batavian trans.), being the well-known scarlet pea with a black spot,
twenty-four of which constitute a _mas_, and sixteen _mas_ (mace) a
_tāil_ (_tael_): the other called _saga puku_ and _kondori batang_
(_Aden anthera pavonia_ L), a scarlet or rather coral bean much larger
than the former, and without the black spot. It is the candarin weight
of the Chinese, of which one hundred make a tāil and equal, according
to the tables published by Stevens, to 5·7984 gr. Troy, but the average
weight of those in my possession is 10·50 Troy grains. The tāil differs
however in the northern and southern parts of the island, being at Natal,
Padang, Bencoolen and elsewhere twenty-six pennyweights six grains. At
Achin the _bangkal_ of thirty pennyweights twenty-one grains is the
standard. Spanish dollars are everywhere current and accounts are kept
in dollars, _sukus_ (imaginary quarter dollars) and _kepping_ or copper
cash, of which four hundred go to the dollar. Besides these there are
silver _fanams_, single, double and treble (the latter, called _tali_),
coined at Madras, twenty-four _fanams_ or eight _talis_ being equal to
the Spanish dollar, which is always valued in the English settlements at
five shillings.”
He adds that copper is sold by weight (_picul_), and that tin, which was
accidentally discovered in 1710 by the burning of a house, is exported
for the most part in small pieces or cakes called _tampangs_, sometimes
in slabs (p. 172), and furthermore they purchase bar iron by measurement
instead of by weight (p. 176).
Several points of great importance are to be noticed in the foregoing
statements. Firstly, that whilst for foreign trade with the Chinese
they employ the Chinese weight, which we know always by its Malay name
of _picul_, a well-defined weight standard of 133⅓ lbs. avoirdupois,
they had evidently a native unit of weight, their own _picul_, which
simply means and actually was as much as a man can carry on his back,
and which, as we saw, rarely exceeds 80 lbs. avoirdupois. This seems to
give us an insight into the manner in which the most primitive highest
weight unit is arrived at. A man’s load is one of those natural standards
which will vary according to race and climate, and the conditions under
which the load has to be borne. Thus, the average weight of the load
borne by a dock porter who has to endure the strain for only some few
yards, will of course be far higher than that carried by the porters
of travellers in Central Africa, where the load has to be borne day
after day on a march of several hundred, or a thousand miles. Thus in
the case of the Madis, a pure negro tribe, the average load seems to
be about 50 pounds, which they can carry “20 miles a day for eight or
ten consecutive days without shewing any signs of distress[228].” The
Chinese, the superiors in science of all Eastern Asia, have carefully
adjusted this “_load_,” and it makes, as we have seen above, their
highest weight unit. Its particular amount is probably due to the
fact that, having carefully fixed the weight of the smaller units,
the candarin, the mace, the _liung_ or _tael_, and the _catty_, their
pound, they simply took the hundredfold of the _chang_ or _catty_ as the
standard for their highest unit, and thus that which at an earlier stage
was just as vague and fluctuating as the _picul_, or back-loads in use
still among the less-advanced peoples of the Indian Archipelago, became
a fixed scientific unit. Secondly, we must notice that the Malays have
not followed the Chinese in the subdivisions of the _catty_. For whilst
in China 16 _taels_ or ounces go to the catty, the Malays follow more
strictly the decimal system, and make their catty simply the tenfold
of the _tael_ or ounce. This same method of division we found already
in Annam, and not only in Annam but also in Cambodia and Laos we found
the silver _nên_ or bar, invariably consisting of ten such parts,
corresponding in weight to the Chinese _tael_, sixteen of which go to the
catty.
It would appear, then, that here we have a combination of units of weight
and units of capacity. The higher gold and silver unit, the _nên_, is
simply the tenfold of the lower unit, the _tael_ or ounce, while the
_catty_, which is never employed in China in estimating gold or silver,
but is a genuine commercial unit, was probably originally some natural
unit of capacity. We saw strong evidence of this in Cambodia, where the
name for this weight is _neal_ or cocoanut, and we have just found the
cocoanut as the chief unit of dry measure amongst the Malays of the
Indian Seas. It was probably found that 16 times the _tael_ or ounce
came nearer to the weight of the contents of a cocoanut or bamboo joint
(whatever kind of matter they may have weighed in it for this purpose,
whether rice, or water), than the original 10 ounces, which formed the
_bar_, the highest genuine weight unit. Sixteen was likewise a convenient
number, its factors being numerous, and it could be divided in four
portions, each of which contained four other units. It will presently be
a question as to whether similar influences have not produced our pound
avoirdupois, with its 16 sub-multiples.
M. Moura found a difficulty regarding the Cambodian _neal_ or cocoanut
_catty_; because a _neal_ of rice only weighs half the weight, at which
the _neal_ is rated as a weight. But we saw in Java that the _chapa_
or cocoanut measure is estimated at 2½ pounds avoirdupois. It is then
not improbable that some liquid or substance far heavier than rice was
used to fill the cocoanut, when the value of its contents was being
ascertained by weighing so as to serve as a general unit. The same
variation in weight, owing to the different nature of its contents,
has, as mentioned before, given rise in Ireland to _barrels_ of various
weights. Thus a _barrel_ of wheat contains 20 stone avoirdupois, a
_barrel_ of potatoes 24 stone, a _barrel_ of barley 16 stone, and a
_barrel_ of oats 14 stone. This diversity simply arose from comparative
lightness or heaviness of the different commodities which were measured
by one and the same unit of capacity: the barrel itself, having been
fixed by a process of measurement, similar to that by which the milk-pan
was regulated among the Welsh, and the pannier among the natives of Laos.
The principle by which higher units of capacity or weight are formed is
likewise well illustrated by the instance given above of the _cartload_
of rice, which is simply regarded as the multiple of the pannier or bag,
which forms the smaller unit for rice. The size of the _cartload_ would
be conditioned by the size of the cart usually employed, which in turn
would depend on a variety of other things, such as the nature of the
country, or its roads, or the kind of animals employed for draught. The
vagueness in amount of the _koyan_ or multiple of the _picul_ noticed by
Crawfurd, may thus meet with a reasonable explanation.
We may now return to the mainland of Asia, where we shall find in the
weight system of the Hindus at least one remarkable point of affinity
with that of Sumatra. Marsden has told us that the _rakat_ or scarlet
pea with a black spot is one of the chief weights employed for gold in
Sumatra. This _rakat_ is none other than the _ratti_, which is usually
taken as the basis of the modern Hindu weight system. “This weight,” says
that eminent scholar Colebrooke[229], “is the lowest denomination in
general use, commonly known by the name _ratti_, the same with _rattika_,
which, as well as _ṛaktika_, denotes the red seed as _kṛishnala_
indicates the black seed of the _gunjá_-creeper.” Mr Thomas has shown the
true weight of the _ratti_ is 1·75 grains[230].
Many different standards have been used in India for various purposes,
one for the weighing of gold, another for the weighing of silver, another
used by jewellers, and yet another by the medical tribe, but all alike
start from the _ratti_.
“The determination of the true weight of the _ratti_ has done much both
to facilitate and give authority to the comparison of the ultimately
divergent standards of the ethnic kingdoms of India. Having discovered
the guiding unit, all other calculations become simple, and present
singularly convincing results, notwithstanding that the bases of all
these estimates rest upon so erratic a test as the growth of the seed of
the _gunjá_-creeper (_Abrius precatorius_) under the varied influences of
soil and climate. Nevertheless the small compact grain, checked in early
times by other products of nature, is seen to have the remarkable faculty
of securing a uniform average throughout the entire continent of India,
which only came to be disturbed when monarchs like Shîr Shâh and Akbar
in their vanity raised the weight of the coinage without any reference
to the numbers of _rattis_, inherited from Hindu sources, and officially
recognized in the old, but entirely disregarded and left undefined in the
reformed Muhammadan mintages[231].” We shall learn shortly that in its
uniformity the _ratti_ does not differ from other seeds such as wheat and
barley. Probably, however, the fact that the _gunjá_-creeper was found
everywhere in India gave it its position of a universal standard. Those
who wish to study the elaborate systems of later times employed in India
can consult the works of Colebrooke and Thomas already referred to.
The legislators Manu, Yájnavalkya, and Nárada trace all weights from
the least visible quantity which they concur in naming _trasareṇu_ and
describing as the very small mote, “which may be discovered in a sunbeam
passing through a lattice.” Writers on medicine proceed a step further,
and affirm that a _trasareṇu_ contains 30 _paramáṇu_ or atoms. The
legislators above-named proceed from the _trasareṇu_ as follows:
8 _trasareṇus_ = 1 _likshá_, or minute poppy-seed.
3 _likshás_ = 1 _raja-sarshapa_, or black mustard-seed.
3 _raja-sarshapas_ = 1 _gaura-sarshapa_, or white mustard-seed.
6 _gaura-sarshapas_ = 1 _yava_, or middle-sized barley-corn.
3 _yavas_ = 1 _kṛishnala_, or seed of the _gunjá_.
But as we want to learn what was the actual usage of the Hindus, instead
of dealing with the mere theoretic statements of late authors, I shall at
once quote in full the tables given in the _Līlāvati_ of Brahmegupta, who
wrote his Algebra and Arithmetic about 600 A.D.[232]
MONEY (_by tale_). Twice ten cowries[233] are a _cácíní_; four of these
are a _pána_, sixteen of which must here be considered as a _dramma_, and
in like manner a _nishká_ as consisting of sixteen of these.
WEIGHT. A _gunjá_ (or seed of _Abrus_), is reckoned equal to two
barley-corns (_yavas_). A _valla_ is two _gunjás_ and eight of these
are a _dharana_, two of which make a _yadyanaca_. In like manner one
_dhataca_ is composed of fourteen _vallas_.
Half ten _gunjás_ are called a _másha_ by such as are conversant with
the use of the balance; a _karsha_ contains sixteen of what are called
_máshas_, a _pala_ four _karshas_. A _karsha_ of gold is named _suvarṇa_.
This is quite in harmony with the _weight_ of _gold_ as given by the
legislators:
5 _kṛishnalas_ or _raktikas_ = 1 _másha_.
16 _máshas_ = 1 _karsha_, _aksha_, _tolaka_, or
_suvarṇa_.
4 _karshas_ or _suvarṇas_ = 1 _pala_ or _nishká_.
10 _palas_ = 1 _dharana_ of gold.
Yájnavalkya adds that according to some 5 _suvarṇas_ = 1 _pala_.
All the authorities seem agreed in regarding the term _suvarṇa_ as
peculiar to gold, for which metal it is also a name.
We learn thus that the Hindu standards were fixed by means of natural
seeds, and at no period do they, clever mathematicians as they were,
seem to have made any effort at obtaining a mathematical basis for their
metric systems.
We also observe that the weight known as the _suvarṇa_ or _gold_ weight
_par excellence_ is the weight of a _karsha_ or 80 _gunjás_, which, if we
take the _gunjá_ = 1·75 grains Troy, gives the weight of the _suvarṇa_ as
140 grains. I have already (p. 127) taken the original Hindu gold unit
as not far from this amount. From the _Līlāvati_ we may now with little
misgiving assume it to have been such.
Lastly, let us observe that the barley-corn appears as the basis of the
system in the tables of Brahmegupta and Bhascara, although the _ṛaktika_
evidently overmasters it in the course of time. This is very interesting,
for it indicates that the Hindus had learned the art of weighing in a
comparatively northern region, where barley was the chief cereal under
cultivation. If the system had been invented in the more southern parts
of India, the grain of rice, the staple of life in the southern regions,
would certainly have appeared as the sub-multiple of the _ṛaktika_,
instead of the barley. As a matter of fact, rice-grains seem to have
been occasionally used locally, for Colebrooke remarks that “it is also
said that the _ṛaktika_ is equal in weight to four grains of rice in the
husk.” This supposition is completely in accord with what we found in
Persia, where the modern weight system for gold, silver and medicine
runs thus:
3 _gendum dsho_ (barley-corn) = 1 _nashod_.
4 _nashod_ (a kind of pea, lupin?) = 1 _dung_.
6 _dung_ = 1 _miscal_[234].
Although the _miscal_ and _habba_ denote Arabic influence, we may,
without straining probabilities, conjecture that the use of the
_barley-corn_ here as well as in India, where we found it at a period
anterior to Muhammadan conquest, indicates that in Persia it existed
likewise from the earliest times. The close relationship between the
ancient Hindus and ancient Persians makes it all the more likely. It is
also pointed out that formerly the _nashod_ was divided into _three_
instead of four grains. As the Arabs divide their _karat_ into four
_habbas_, it is all the more likely that the 3 barley-corns = 1 _nashod_
belong to the ancient system.
The Arab weight system is based on the grain of wheat, four of which
make a _karat_ (the seed of the carob or St John’s Bread)[235].
Occasionally in the Arab writers mention is made of a karat divided into
3 _habbas_[235]. The weight of the karat remains unchanged, but the
grains in this case are barley grains, since, as we shall see presently,
3 grains of barley are equal to 4 grains of wheat (·063 × 3 = ·047 × 4).
It will now be most convenient for us to begin in the extreme west, and
once more from that work back towards the coast of the Aegean Sea, in
which our chief interest must always be centred.
Whether the Kelts of Ireland had any indigenous weight system or not, we
have no direct evidence, although we do know as a fact that when Caesar
landed in Kent he found the Britons employing coins of gold and bronze,
and bars (or according to some MSS. _rings_) of iron adjusted to a fixed
weight. However the earliest Irish documents reveal that people using
a system of weights for silver directly borrowed from the older Roman
system (although it is likely that they had a native standard for gold).
As the _solidus_ and _denarius_ became the chief units of Europe from the
time of Constantine the Great (336 A.D.), the Irish probably received
their system at an earlier date.
1 _unga_ (_uncia_) = 24 _screapalls_ (_scripula_).
1 _screapall_ = 3 _pingiuns_.
1 _pingiun_ = 8 grains of wheat[236].
When we pass to England, the very word _grain_ which we employ to express
our lowest weight unit, would of itself suggest that originally some
kind of _grain_ or _seed_ was employed by our forefathers in weighing,
but as the grain in use among us is the _grain Troy_, and as we have not
yet learned its origin, it will not do to argue vaguely from etymology.
But a little enquiry soon brings us to a time when the grain Troy did
not as yet form the basis of English weights, and when a far simpler
method of fixing the weight of the kings coinage was in vogue. It was
ordained by 12 Henry VII. ch. V. “that the bushel is to contain eight
gallons of wheat, and every gallon eight pounds of wheat, and every
pound twelve ounces of Troy weight, and every ounce twenty sterlings,
and every sterling to be of the weight of thirty-two grains of wheat
that grew in the midst of the ear of wheat according to the old laws of
this land[237].” Going backwards we find that in 1280 (8 Edward I.) the
penny was to weigh 24 grains, which by weight then appointed were as much
as the former 32 grains of wheat. By the Statute _De Ponderibus_, of
uncertain date but put by some in 1265, it was ordained that the penny
sterling should weigh 32 grains of wheat, round and dry, and taken from
the midst of the ear. Going back a step still further we find that by the
Laws of Ethelred, every penny weighed 32 grains of wheat[238], and as the
pennies struck by King Alfred weigh 24 grains Troy, we may assume without
hesitation that they were struck on the same standard of 32 grains of
wheat. Thus from Alfred (871-901) down to Henry VII. (1485-1509), we
find the penny fixed by this primitive method, and the actual weight of
the coins, as tested by the balance at the present day, affords proof
positive of the method.
But all the standards of mediaeval Europe (with the exception of the
Irish) were based on the gold _solidus_ of Constantine the Great[239].
The _solidus_ (itself weighing 72 grains Troy or ⅟₇₂ of the Roman pound)
was divided into 24 _siliquae_. The _siliqua_, or as the Greeks called it
_keration_ (κεράτιον, from which comes our word _carat_), was the seed
of the _carob_, or as it is often called, _St John’s Bread_ (_Ceratonia
siliqua_ L). Thus the lowest unit in the Roman system, as it is usually
given, is found to be the seed of a plant. The same holds of the Greek
system, for the _drachma_ is described as containing 18 _kerata_ or
_keratia_, whilst according to others “it contains three _grammata_, but
the _gramma_ contains two _obols_ and the _obol_ contains three _kerata_,
and the _keras_ contains four _wheat grains_[240].” From this we see that
the _keration_ or _siliqua_ was further reduced to 4 _sitaria_, or grains
of wheat, whilst from another ancient table of weights[241] we learn that
the _siliqua_ likewise equals 3 barley-corns (_siliqua grana ordei_ iii).
Hence it appears that 3 barley-corns = 4 wheat grains. Thus both Greek
and Roman systems just like the English and Irish take as their smallest
unit a grain of corn. This also throws important light on the origin of
that mysterious thing, the Troy grain. We saw above (8 Edward I.) that
at the time of its introduction into England that 24 grains Troy = 32
grains of wheat, that is the Troy grain stands to wheat grain as 3:4.
But as we have just seen that the _siliqua_ = 3 barley-corns, and also
= 4 wheat-corns, it follows that 3 barley-corns = 4 wheat-corns. And as
3 Troy grains = 4 wheat-corns, it likewise follows that 3 Troy grains =
3 barley-corns, or in other words, the barley-corn and Troy grain are
the same things. It thus appears that the Troy grain is nothing more
than the barley-corn, which was used as the weight unit in preference
to the grain of wheat in some parts of the Roman empire. Furthermore
this relation between barley-corns and wheat-corns can be proved to be a
fact of Nature. In September, 1887, I placed in the opposite scales of a
balance 32 grains of wheat “dry and taken from the midst of the ear,” and
24 grains of barley taken from ricks of corn grown in the same field at
Fen Ditton, near Cambridge, and I thrice repeated the experiment; each
time they balanced so evenly that a half grain weight turned the scale.
The grain of Scotch wheat weighs ·047 gram, the Troy grain = ·064, ·047 ×
4 = 188, ·064 × 3 = 192. Practically 4 wheat grains = 3 Troy grains.
Before passing from the Greek and Roman standards I may add that even
higher denominations than the _siliqua_ were expressed by the seeds of
plants. The Romans made the lupin (_lupinus_) = 2 _siliquae_ and under
its Greek name of _thermos_ (θερμός), it was assigned a like value
(_Metrol. Script._ I. 81). In the _Carmen de Ponderibus_ (_Metrol.
Script._ II. 16), 6 grains of pulse (_grana lentis_) are made equal to
6 _siliquae_, and a like number of grains of spelt are given a similar
value.
We next advance towards the East and take up the Semitic systems. We
have already had occasion to touch upon that of the Arabs when dealing
with the modern Persians. “There can be little doubt,” says Queipo (I.
360), “that the Arab system of weight was based on the grain of wheat.”
The _habba_ was their smallest unit. Four _habbas_ are equal to 1
_karat_, the latter of course representing the _keration_ or _siliqua_,
and the former the 4 _sitaria_ or _wheat-grains_, which we saw were
its equivalent. This is the most ordinary value given to the karat in
Makrizi and the other Arabic writers on Metrology, but occasionally
we find the karat made equal to only 3 grains, which of course are
barley-corns. We saw above that in the Persian system the _nashod_ was
formerly divided into 4 _habbi_ of ·048 gram (which is plainly the weight
of the wheat-grain), whilst now it is divided into 3 grains each of ·063
which represents the barley-corn, or in other words the Troy grain of
·064 gram. Of course the objection might be raised that as the Arabs
had borrowed their higher denominations such as the _dirhem_ (δραχμή)
and _dinar_ (_denarius_, δηνάριον), from the Greeks and Romans, and as
their standard weight the _mithkal_ is nothing more than the _sextula_
or ⅙ of the Roman ounce, employed in the eastern Empire under the name
of _exagion_ (ἐξάγιον, whence comes the _saggio_ of Marco Polo), so too
their wheat-corns and barley-corns were not of their own devising, but
likewise adventitious. After what we have seen above (p. 166) to be the
practice of primitive people in the selling of gold, a traffic in which
the Arabs had been engaged for many ages, it would seem hardly necessary
to reply to such an argument, but as a more complete answer can be given
in the course of the last portion of this enquiry, we shall deal with it
in that place.
We now come to the Assyrians themselves, from the discovery of whose
weights in the shape of lions and ducks, the whole modern theory of a
scientific origin for all the weight standards of the Greeks as well as
Asiatics and Egyptians has had its origin. But even within this sacred
precinct of _à priori_ metrology the irrepressible grain of corn springs
up vigorously, although almost choked by the abundant crop of tares which
have been sown around it. If we find that a Semitic people, who were
the ancients of the earth before Pelops passed from Asia into Greece,
or Romulus had founded his Asylum, employed the wheat grain as their
lowest weight unit, we may then well argue that ages before the birth of
the Prophet and the Arab conquest of Egypt and Syria, the Semitic folks
employed grains of corn to form their lowest weight unit.
M. Aurès[242], a well-known Assyrian metrologist, has recently set forth
the Assyrian system in its latest and most advanced stage. Following the
veteran Assyriologist, M. Oppert, he finds that the Assyrians used a
denomination lower than the obol. In the Museum of the Louvre there is
a small Assyrian weight of the “duck” kind, which bears on its base the
Assyrian character of 22 _grains_ ½. The ideogram translated _grain_ is
evidently meant to represent some kind of corn with a rounded end. The
weight of this object is ·95 gram (14⁶⁄₇ grains Troy). The weight is a ¾
obol, and therefore 30 grains went to the obol. This is the obol of the
heavy Assyrian system, of which we shall presently speak. For the sake of
clearness, I take M. Aurès’ table.
30 grains = 1 obol.
6 obols = 1 drachm.
2 drachms = 1 shekel.
10 drachms = 1 “stone.”
60 ” = 1 _light_ mina.
For our present purpose it is quite sufficient to call attention to the
fact that this grain which forms the lowest unit of the Assyrian scale
weighs ·042 gram (·95 ÷ 22·5) which is a very close approximation to
the weight of the _wheat-grain_ (·047). Making allowance for some loss
which the weight may have sustained, it seems impossible to doubt that
we have here the wheat-grain being used to form the smallest unit as it
is in the modern Arabic system. The double obol of the Assyrians weighs
30 grains; we shall also find that the Hebrew _gêrâh_ or obol (twenty of
which made a shekel), weighed exactly 15 _grains of wheat_, that is the
Hebrew _gêrâh_ is the light obol which stood side by side with the heavy
obol of 30 grains in the Assyrian system. Let us treat the matter from a
slightly different point of view: As the _light_ Assyrian obol contained
15 _Assyrian_ grains, the _light_ shekel contained 180 _Assyrian_ grs.
But as we know that this light Assyrian shekel weighed 8·4 grams, or
131 grains _Troy_, and as we know that the _Troy_ grain is really the
barley-corn and likewise that 3 barley-corns = 4 _wheat_ grains, it is
obvious that 131 grains Troy = 175 _wheat_ grs. nearly, a very close
approximation to the 180 _Assyrian_ grs. Again as 180 _Assyrian_ grs. =
8·4 grams, the _Assyrian_ grain weighed ·046 gram, that is almost exactly
the weight of a _wheat_ grain (·047 gram).
But let us see for a moment in what fashion M. Aurès accounts for the
presence of corn-grains in a system so elaborately scientific as he and
his school maintain.
Starting as usual with the old assumption that all weight standards come
from the measures of capacity and all measures of capacity in their turn
are derived from the linear measures, he proceeds thus: The Assyrian
ideogram which represents _tribute_, likewise represents _talent_.
Tribute being paid in corn, no doubt the idea of weight first arose as
the people carried their quota of corn on their backs to the receipt of
custom. They accordingly weighed the measure (_bar_), which contained
the proper amount of corn and took it as their weight unit, and then
proceeded to make subdivisions of it. When their weight system was thus
fixed, for convenience instead of going to the trouble of adjusting
weights they took 30 grains of corn which would be just equivalent to
the weight of an obol. After the many historical instances quoted in the
preceding pages in which the methods of appraising the value of corn and
other dry commodities have been set out, and also the manner in which
corn grains have been employed for fixing the higher standard, as for
instance in the adjustment of the English bushel in the reign of Henry
VII., the reader will feel that M. Aurès has simply inverted the true
order of events, and that as we found the natives of Annam and the Malays
of the Indian Archipelago making their first essay in weighing by means
of a grain of maize, or rice, or _padi_, so the ancient inhabitants of
Mesopotamia made their first beginning, and as we have found everywhere
that gold, the most precious of objects, was the first thing to be
weighed, and as it only existed in small quantities, thus requiring but a
very small unit of weight, so the Assyrians likewise began to weigh gold
first of all, employing the natural seeds of corn, and only in process of
time arrived at higher units by multiplying the smaller.
To all the evidence collected from Asia and Europe we can likewise add a
fact of great importance from Africa. We saw that it was highly probable
that the Carthaginians traded for gold to the West Coast of Africa, and
beyond all reasonable doubt the natives of the Gold Coast have for ages
been acquainted with that metal. Now it can be proved that these peoples,
whilst employing no weights for any other mercantile transaction, used
the seeds of certain plants for weighing their gold; thus Bosman writing
two centuries ago says, “Having treated of gold at large, I am now
obliged to say something concerning the gold weights, which are either
pounds, marks, ounces or angels.... We use here another kind of weights
which are a sort of beans, the least of which are red spotted with black
and called Dambas; twenty-four of them amount to an angel, and each of
them is reckoned two stiver weights; the white beans with black spots or
those entirely black are heavier and accounted four stiver weights: these
they usually call Tacoes, but there are some which weigh half or a whole
gilder, but are not esteemed certain weights, but used at pleasure and
often become instruments of fraud. Several have believed that the negroes
only used wooden weights, but that is a mistake; all of them have cast
weights either of copper or tin, which though divided or adjusted in a
manner quite different to ours; yet upon reduction agree exactly with
them[243]”.
I am informed by Mr Quayle Jones, Chief Justice of Sierra Leone, that
at the present day, a seed called the _Taku_, (with a black spot) is
employed by the natives of the Gold Coast for weighing gold. He also
tells me that small quantities of gold are measured by a quill in
ordinary dealings in the market[244]. I learn from another private source
that 6 Takus = 1 ackie (20 ackies = 1 ounce). From Bosnian’s equating the
bean with the red spot to 2 stiver-weights, we can deduce its weight as
2 grs. troy; this result combined with the colour of the bean would make
us a _à priori_ conclude that the Damba was the _Abrus precatorius_, so
familiar to us already under its Hindu name of _ratti_.
Here we have a primitive people with a weight system of their own based
on the Damba and Taku, just as the Hindu is based on the _ratti_, and
here too we have another proof that the first of all articles to be
weighed is gold. From Bosman we also learn that gold in small quantities
was not always weighed, for he says of the inferior gold which was mixed
with silver or copper, that it is cast into fetiches (small grotesque
figures). “These fetiches are cut into small bits by the negroes of one,
two, or three farthings. The negroes know the exact value of these bits
so well at sight, that they never are mistaken, and accordingly they sell
them to each other without weighing as we do coined money[245].” This
recalls the practice as regards silver among the Tibetans at the present
day.
Crossing to the eastern side of Africa we find the natives of Madagascar
employing a system, the basis of which is a grain of rice. “The Malagasy
have no circulating medium of their own. Dollars are known more or less
throughout the island: but in many of the provinces trade is carried on
principally by an exchange of commodities. The Spanish dollar, stamped
with the two pillars, bears the highest value. For sums below a dollar
the inconvenient method is resorted to in the interior, of weighing the
money in every case. Dollars are cut up into small pieces, and four iron
weights are used for the half, quarter, eighth, and twelfth of a dollar.
Below that amount, divisions are effected by combinations of the four
weights, and also by means of grains of rice, even down so low as one
single grain—“Vary vray venty,” one plump grain, valued at the seven
hundred and twentieth part of a dollar”[246]. The grain of rice therefore
weighs ⁵⁄₉ gr. troy (·036 gram). As gold is not found in Madagascar[247]
the natives could not weigh it first of all things; but they have carried
out the principle of taking silver, the most precious article they
possessed, as the first object to be weighed.
In this chapter, therefore, we have sought the method by which weight
standards are fixed among primitive and semi-civilized peoples; we have
studied the system or systems of China, Cochin-China, Cambodia, Laos
and the great Islands of the Indian Ocean. Everywhere we have received
the self-same answer, everywhere the lowest unit is nothing more than
a natural seed or grain. We found in two places in the area studied,
amongst the Tapaks of Annam and the Malays of Sumatra, the art of
weighing in its earliest infancy; only one product, gold, as yet being
weighed, and the weight unit employed for it being a grain of rice or
maize. We found that this smallest natural unit of gold was amongst the
Bahnars equated to the smallest unit of barter in use among them, the
hoe, whilst their highest unit was the buffalo; and that by a simple
process based on the known relation existing in value between the
hoe, the _muk_, the jar, and the buffalo, there was no difficulty in
arriving empirically at the exact value in gold of a buffalo. We found
also that the two higher units of weight the _picul_, and the _catty_,
which in almost every case were found to be confined to the ordinary
merchandise, were beyond reasonable doubt not originally multiples of the
lower the _tael_, but were really natural units obtained by a totally
different process; the _picul_ being the amount which an average man can
conveniently carry on his back, the _catty_, as seen especially in the
case of the _neal_ of Cambodia, being nothing more than the cocoa-nut
shell used as the ordinary measure of capacity, as a gourd of a certain
kind is employed at Zanzibar, as the hen’s egg was employed by the
Hebrews and also by the ancient Irish, as the cochlea or mussel shell
was taken by the Romans as the basis of their measures of capacity, and
as possibly the gourd itself under its name of _Kyathos_ formed the
lowest unit of capacity among the Greeks. We saw clearly that the catty
has never become a weight-unit for precious metals among the Chinese,
Annamites or Cambodians; the first named never having used any higher
unit for such purpose than a bar of ten _taels_, and at the present day
for the most part contenting themselves with the _tael_ or ounce, whilst
the two latter still use the _nên_ or bar with its subdivisions into
10 _denhs_, or in other words, use as their highest monetary unit the
tenfold of the _tael_ or ounce. We likewise found that in Annam among
the less advanced peoples there was considerable evidence to show that
the _bat_ or tical was originally the highest unit used for gold, and
that this name _bat_ was applied to weights of different amount; thus
the _chi_ which in commercial weight is only the quarter of a _bat_, is
itself called the gold _bat_. The _bat_ itself was the third of the
_tael_. We also found the bar of silver, the common monetary unit at the
present moment, equated to the buffalo, the common unit of barter among
the Bahnars, and finally we had a distinct tradition that not so long ago
the wild tribesmen who win the gold dust from the sands of their native
brooks did not as yet even weigh the metal by means of the grains of
maize which are now employed, but that they measured off a small rod of
gold an inch long as the equivalent of a buffalo.
From all these facts it seems easy to trace the history of the
development of weight standards in Further Asia; the first stage in
trafficking in gold seems to be one purely by measure, then comes that
of weighing by means of grains of corn, the weight in gold of one or
more grains of corn being taken in the ordinary way of barter like other
articles in the common scale of exchange. A multiple of the higher unit
the _bat_ was formed, possibly based on the slave as the multiple of
the buffalo. This multiple is threefold of the _bat_, in that respect
offering a strange analogy to the gold talent of Sicily, Magna Graecia,
and Macedonia, which is the threefold of the Homeric ox-unit, and which,
as I have conjectured, may have represented the value of a slave, as
we certainly know as a fact that the 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. We also saw the negroes of Central Africa employing iron made into
pieces ready to be cut into two hoes, and we also found those on the West
Coast of Africa and the Hottentots employing bars of iron in a raw state,
as a kind of currency. We also saw one most important feature possessed
by all those in common, viz. the fact that in the determination of the
value of the bar, the ingot, the piece of iron made in the shape of two
hoes, and the bronze knife, not weight but linear measurement based on
the parts of the human body, was the method invariably employed.
We then advanced to Western Asia and Europe and found everywhere
alike the weight standards fixed by means of the seeds of plants. The
process likewise was made perfectly plain. We did not find the highest
denomination taken as the unit and the lowest reached by a long process
of subdivisions, and finally for convenience sake described as consisting
of so many grains of corn, as the brilliant French _savant_ assumes in
the case of the Assyrians: on the contrary we found that the bushel of
Henry VII. was reached by first fixing the weight of the penny sterling
by means of 32 grains of wheat, round and dry and “taken from the
midst of the ear of wheat after the old laws of the land.” Again the
Irish Kelts did not say that the _unga_ or ounce must contain so many
_screapalls_, and each _screapall_ so many _pingiuns_, but they proceeded
in quite the reverse way first fixing the weight of the _pingiun_ by
eight grains of wheat. We may then well assume that such too was the
process among Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Hindus. Brahmegupta, and the
legislators quoted above support this view by starting always with the
smallest unit. It is only when we come to the system of Babylon we are
asked to reverse the process, to admit that the idea of weights began
with corn, the very commodity of all others which, according to all
the instances previously quoted, was the last to be valued by weight,
and which even amongst ourselves at this present moment can hardly be
said to be regarded as an article appraised by weight. But furthermore
if the Assyrians regarded the Talent as their unit, and their lesser
denominations as its subdivisions, why did not the maker of the weight
mentioned above inscribe it as ¾ obol, or by some other term to indicate
that it was essentially regarded as a fraction of a higher denomination,
and not as a multiple of a lower? But the ancient Assyrian who made the
weight must plainly have regarded it in the latter light, for otherwise
he would not have engraved on it 22 _grains_ ½, actually resorting to
the fraction of a grain. The only reasonable explanation of his conduct
is that he was as firmly impressed with the idea that the basis of his
system was the grain of corn (wheat) as were Brahmagupta, or Henry VII.’s
parliament with the idea that the barley-corn and wheat-corn were the
bases of their respective systems. If the objection be raised that the
grains of corn were only devised in days long after the scientific fixing
of weight standards, my answer is that if it was necessary to employ
natural seeds as a means of determining the accuracy of scientifically
obtained units, _à fortiori_ it was necessary for mankind to have
employed such seeds as their first step in the establishing of a system
of weights.
No simpler idea connected with weight could have struck the primitive
mind. The difficulty experienced by savages in counting beyond 3 or 4
is met by them by the use of counters. We are all familiar with the use
of _pebbles_ or small stones among the Greeks and Romans. Our own word
_calculate_ is simply an adaptation of the Latin _calculare_ to count by
pebbles (_calculi_). Some nations, probably all, have been unable to form
abstract names for their numerals, and the name of the concrete object
which they habitually employed as a counter has become firmly embedded
as a suffix in the names of their numerals. Thus the Aztec numerals end
in _tetl_, a _pebble_, because they employed small stones as counters.
Similarly the Malays whom we found weighing gold by means of grains
of _padi_ employ that word as a numeral suffix, because they employed
grains of rice for their _calculations_ or, to speak more accurately,
_seminations_. In the case of this people we find coincident the most
primitive forms of numeration and of weighing, both processes being
carried on by means of the same simple instrument, which Nature put ready
to hand in the corn which formed their daily sustenance.
If any one still maintains that the Indian Islander or Tapak of Annam
learned the art of weighing by grains from the Chinese, and would
maintain that the latter either invented for themselves or borrowed
from Babylonia a scientifically devised weight system, I will go a step
further and try to produce some evidence of the process by which weight
standards are arrived at, by seeking instances in a region so isolated as
to be beyond the reach of all suspicion of having borrowed from Babylon.
From what I have said above, we cannot expect to find any such community
in the Old World. The New World on the other hand supplies us with
what we desire. When the Spaniards under Cortes, conquered the Aztecs
of Mexico, that people, although in a high state of civilization, had
as yet no system of weights. In consequence of this want the Spaniards
experienced some difficulty in the division of the treasure, until they
supplied the deficiency with weights and scales of their own manufacture.
There was a vast treasure of gold, which metal, found on the surface or
gleaned from the beds of rivers, was cast into bars, or in the shape
of dust made part of the regular tribute of the southern provinces of
the empire. The traffic was carried on partly by barter, and partly by
means of a regulated currency of different values. This consisted of
transparent quills of gold dust, bits of tin cut in the form of T, and
bags full of cacao containing a specified number of grains[248].
From this we get an insight into the first beginnings of weights. Some
natural unit (and by natural I mean some product of nature of which all
specimens are of uniform dimension) is taken, such as the quill used
by the Aztecs. The average-sized quill of any particular kind of bird
presents a natural receptacle of very uniform capacity. These quills of
gold-dust were estimated at so many bags containing a certain number
of grains. The step is not a long one to the day when some one will
balance in a simple fashion quills of gold dust against seeds of cacao,
and find how much gold is equal to a nut. Nature herself supplies in
the seeds of plants weight-units of marvellous uniformity. If any one
objects to my assumption that the Aztecs were on the very verge of the
invention of a weight system, my answer is that another race of America,
whose political existence ceased under the same cruel conditions as that
of their Northern contemporaries, I mean the Incas of Peru, who were
in a stage of civilization almost the same as that of the Aztecs, had
already found out the art of weighing before the coming of the Spaniards,
although they were inferior to the Mexicans in so far as they had not
a well-defined system of hieroglyphic writing, nor of currency such as
the latter possessed. Scales made of silver have been discovered in Inca
graves[249]. The metal of which they are made shows that they were only
employed for weighing precious commodities of small bulk.
Unfortunately I can find no record of weights having been found along
with the silver scales in the Inca graves. If the weights were simply
natural seeds, they would easily perish, or even if perfect when the
tombs were opened, would be simply regarded as part of the ordinary
supply of food placed with the dead in the grave. But I forbear from
laying the slightest stress on negative evidence of such a kind.
But beyond doubt we have on the American continent, far removed from
connection with Asia, a series of facts closely harmonising with what we
have found in Further Asia, and also among the peoples of Hither Asia,
Europe and Africa. The Aztecs are still measuring gold, but the Incas
have invented the balance. The Incas have no alphabet, the _quipus_ as
yet being their greatest advance towards a means of keeping a record of
the past. It follows that it is possible for the human race to invent a
system of weighing before it has made any advance in letters or science.
Hence it is logical to infer that the civilized races of Asia and Europe
could have discovered a means of weighing gold long before the Chaldean
sages made a single step in their astronomical discoveries, or a single
symbol of the cuneiform syllabary had as yet been impressed on brick or
tablet.
_Weights of various grains._
grammes
Troy Grain ·064
Barley ·064
Wheat ·048
Rice ·036
Carob ·192 = 3 barley = 4 wheat
Lupin ·384 = 2 carobs
Maize (ordinary) ·128 = 2 barley
Ratti ·128 = 2 barley
Rye ·032 = ½ barley