The English word “money” is defined by Webster as “any currency usually and lawfully employed in buying and selling;” and the word “currency” is defined as “that which is in circulation or is given and taken as having or representing value.” Varieties of Money. Until recent times many substances entirely foreign to our modern ideas of money were used as measures of value, among which were: _Leather._ In Rome and Sparta 700 B. C., and in Persia, Tartary, France and Spain as late as the sixteenth century. _Bark._ China used the inner bark of the mulberry tree in the fourteenth century. _Base Metals._ Iron was used by the ancient Spartans, Romans and Hebrews; tin was used in ancient Syracuse and Britain, while lead is still used in Burmah and brass in China. All of these forms of money were stamped with some sort of design indicating their exchangeable value and by whose authority they were issued. _Wood._ Several ancient governments used money made of wood. From the time of Henry I. (A. D. 1273) up to the foundation of the Bank of England, in 1694, a period of over four hundred years, England circulated a legal-tender money make of wood, called “exchange tallies.” The “tally” issued by the British Exchequer was a stick or bit of peeled rod upon which notches were cut, indicative of an account, pledge or other commercial transaction. It was split in such a way as to divide the notches. One-half the “tally” was given to the payer and one-half was retained by the Exchequer; and the transaction might be verified at any time by fitting the two halves together, when the notches would be found to “tally” with each other if the check had not been tampered with. Jonathan Duncan said that these wooden representatives of value circulated freely among the people and sustained the trade of England. _Wampum._ One of the prevailing forms of money in use among the New England colonies was wampum. This was simply strings of white and black beads made from sea-shells found along the New England coasts. In 1641 Massachusetts made these beads a legal tender at the rate of six for a penny up to the sum of £10; and they were receivable, at that rate, for all judgments and taxes. In 1643 the limit of this legal tender was reduced to 40 shillings. In 1649 the colony passed a statute forbidding the receipt of wampum for taxes, and its use as money rapidly declined, though it still circulated in a limited way in several of the colonies as late as 1704. _Tobacco._ The people of Maryland and Virginia, before the Revolutionary war and for some time after, in default of gold and silver, used tobacco as money, made it money by law, reckoned the fees and salaries of government officers in tobacco and collected the public taxes in that article.