In his celebrated work, "Money and the Mechanism of Exchange," Jevons tells of a Parisian singer who made a professional tour around the world and gave a concert in the Society Islands, where she was to receive a third part of the receipts. "When counted her share was found to consist of three pigs, twenty-three turkeys, forty-four chickens, five thousand cocoanuts, besides considerable quantities of bananas, lemons, and oranges. As Mademoiselle could not consume any considerable portion of the receipts herself it became necessary in the meantime to feed the pigs and poultry with the fruit." Here was a case of barter. The natives in paying for entrance to the concert gave directly what they wanted less for what they wanted more, and without the intermediation of a third commodity called money.

While this method of payment is very simple it has many inconveniences, as the prima donna in question undoubtedly appreciated. In the first place, if A wants what B has, it may not also happen that B wants what A has. In that case A cannot get what he desires from B but must continue his search for the article until he finds someone who not only has it but one also who wants the thing which he has.

A second difficulty of barter has to do with remembering the rate of exchange. Where there are only two or three articles to be exchanged this difficulty is not of much consequence. For example, if there are only three commodities which could possibly be exchanged for one another it is necessary to remember what quantities of each one customarily-exchange for certain quantities of the other two. This makes only three ratios of exchange to remember. But where a hundred articles are to be exchanged against one another, if a person has to keep account of all of the different relations of each of the commodities to the other ninety-nine, he will have to remember four thousand nine hundred and fifty ratios. If, however, one of the hundred articles is selected as a measure of value and the value of each of the other ninety-nine articles is to be remembered in terms of the value of this chosen article, then it becomes necessary to remember only ninety-nine ratios of exchange. If it is desired to exchange two articles other than this standard measure of value, their relative values may be determined by comparing each of them with the standard measure.

A third difficulty in the way of barter arises from the inconvenience that comes from the fact that the two goods which it is desired to exchange may not be divisible. Thus A may wish to exchange a coat which he has for a cow which belongs to B, and B may be willing to make the exchange provided that A's terms are suitable. If it should happen, however, that they agree that the cow is worth more than the coat, or the coat is worth more than the cow, this decision will stand in the way of the exchange on account of the obvious undesirability of cutting a piece off either the cow or the coat in order to make the exchange an even one.