We learn from another part of Laos an interesting fact which also throws some light on the development of the larger weight units from measures of capacity. For since in some parts of that country the cocoanut is used as the measure of capacity, and as _neal_, the native Cambodian name for the _catty_, means simply a cocoanut, it looks as though this was the real origin of the catty universally employed over all Further Asia. This likewise gives us the reason why the catty of silver is twice the weight of a catty of rice. If a weight unit is derived from a measure of capacity, according to the nature of the substance or liquid with which the measure is filled, the weight unit derived will be heavier or lighter, just as the Irish barrel of wheat is 6 stones heavier than the barrel of oats. A cocoa-nut, or bamboo-joint filled with silver will give a far heavier weight unit than if it is weighed when filled with rice. We have now had a survey of the monetary and weight systems of China, Annam, Cambodia and Laos, and everywhere found that the _nên_ or bar of 10 _taels_ is the highest known metallic unit, and that except in Laos the counting of money even by the catty or pound is unknown, the Chinese themselves only employing the _tael_ as their highest monetary unit, the catty being kept as in Annam and Cambodia itself for ordinary goods. This is borne out by the practices in the weighing of gold. In Attopoeu, the region where gold is found, 8 _chi_ (= 2 _ticals_ or _bats_ = 4 _slings_ = 30 grammes) are exchanged for a bar of silver (= 100 _chi_ = 375 grammes). M. Aymonier thinks that the gold _bat_, that is to say the weight in gold of a _tical_ (15 grammes, 234 grains Troy), must have been the unit for weighing gold, as formerly it was necessary to give a gold _bat_ in order to marry a girl of the blood royal. This gets considerable support from the fact that in Sieng-Khan the gold _bat_ has only the weight of a _sling_ or _chi_ (58½ grains Troy), that is the quarter of a _tical_, and the weight of the _tical_ or _bat_ is called a _damling_. In fact they hardly reckon gold in any other way than by this small _damling_ which is only the weight of a _tical_ (234 grains Troy). In reference to my argument that as gold is the first of all things to be weighed, the primitive weight unit is certain to be small, as no man has, as a rule, any need to weigh his gold by the hundredweight or large mercantile talent, this fact that the highest unit for weighing gold in Attopoeu is so small, not even reaching the weight of the Graeco-Phoenician heavy gold shekel or double ox-unit of 260 grains, is of considerable importance.