BABYLON AND PERSIA

2;i4 media; babylon, and persia.moment could be in its turn exchanged for whateverwares the owner needed. Ofcourse the intrinsic value ,of such a medium of exchange must be a universallyacknowledged one, determined by general agreement.It has from times immemorial been found expedientto invest with such standard value the so-called pre¬cious metals, gold and silver. Once the positivevalueof a given weight of the metal had been settled,it only remained to divide masses of it into a greatmany smaller pieces, each weighing a certain fractionof the standard weight, and consequently represent¬ing a certain, well-defined fraction of the standard unitvalue. I-Ienceforth the merchant who sold a rug, ora dagger, or a vessel of fine glass, was not forced to. take in payment a number of live sheep, or of sheep¬skins, or of measures of grain, or a wagon-load of hay,or any other ponderous and cumbersome waresthat his customer might happen to have on hand ;nor need a farmer, disposing of his' surplus stockor grain, take in exchange for it articles that, per¬haps, were not at all what he wanted. A bar, or acertain number of rings of gold or silver did the busi¬ness much better and could be put away and kepttill needed for a purchase. The facility thus offeredfor transfer of bulky property such as land, houses,etc., was immense ; and how early it was made useof, we see from that curious statement in Genesis(Ch. XXIII.) which shows us Abraham, a contempo¬rary of the Elamite Khudur-Lagamar,* paying hisHittite hosts, for the field he requested of theircourtesy, 400 shekels of silver, " such as are currentwith the merchants.""See " Story of Chaldea," pp. 222-224.