+148. Selection of a predominant ware.+ Crawfurd, in his history of the Indian Archipelago, mentions a number of different articles used there as money,--cakes of beeswax, salt, gold dust, cattle, and tin.[316] The tin coins are small irregular laminae with a hole in the center, 5600 of them being worth a dollar. Brass coins which come down from the Buddhist sovereigns of Java are still met with; also other brass coins introduced by the Mohammedan sovereigns. In the museum at Vienna copper rings, bound into a circle, inclosed in a fibrous envelope, are another form of money. The selection of a predominant ware is shown in such cases as the one described in Ling Roth.[317] When Low was at Kiau, in 1851, beads and brass wire were wanted. When others were there some years later the people all had their hearts set on brass wire. The Englishmen "distributed a good deal of cloth, at reasonable rates, in exchange for food and services rendered." In 1858 they found that even brass wire, unless of very great size, was despised, and cloth was eagerly desired. One thing which helped the selection of a predominant ware was that only a specified article would make peace, atone for a wrong, compose a quarrel, or ransom a captive. Also various articles obtained such prestige, on account of age and the glory of ancestors, that the possession of them conferred authority and social importance on their owners. Such are porcelain jars in Borneo, bronze drums in Burma, bronze cannon in the East-Indian Archipelago. Many African chiefs stored up ivory tusks for social prestige long before the white men came and gave them value in world commerce.[318]