As previously stated, gold and silver are used extensively for articles of adornment and as jewelry, tableware, etc., and it is probable that their general usefulness as commodities first suggested their use as money. The fact must not be lost sight of by the student of this subject that real money is a commodity, and the selling of corn for gold is an act of barter. The word barter is commonly used to signify the exchange of one article for another without the use of money, but it must be remembered that all trade is barter when the precious metals are employed as equivalents, since these are commodities. This important fact forms the basis for a correct understanding of the entire science of money.

It will thus be apparent that the coinage of a precious metal, while it changes its form, does not destroy its character as a commodity, and the exchange of the substance, whether coined or in its crude state, is an act of barter. In fact it is not necessary that the metal or other substance used as money should be coined at all. Gold and silver were used as money before they were coined. They were then measured by weight, and to avoid this inconvenience the stamp was put upon them indicating the weight, which, says Aristotle, was afterwards taken to indicate value also. All that coinage does is to save the trouble of innumerable weighings and assayings which would hamper trade and prove so troublesome and inconvenient as to largely destroy the usefulness of money as a measure of value. Another advantage in coins of the precious metals, early recognized, was their durability. There was serious shrinkage and deterioration in fish or tobacco, as money, and hides were not divisible, while all of these articles were not easily transferred or transported from place to place.

All writers agree that the essentials of a good kind of money are durability, portability, divisibility, homogeneity and uniformity in value. These qualities seem to exist in gold and silver to a greater extent than is embodied in any other two metals. Gold and silver, being commodities, are of course subject to some fluctuations in value, and silver especially has shown a marked change in value in