I have quoted at full length these passages in order that the reader may accept with fuller confidence statements so instructive as regards the origin of weight, the first object to be weighed, and the origin of the _picul_, or as we may call it the _talent_ of Eastern Asia. Nine years before Crawfurd wrote there had appeared William Marsden’s admirable _History of Sumatra_[227]. He gives us far fuller information on the subject of gold than Crawfurd has done. Thus he writes: “In those parts of the country where traffic in this article (gold dust) is considerable, it is employed as currency instead of coin; every man carries small scales about him, and purchases are made with it so low as to the weight of a grain or two of _padi_. Various seeds are used as gold weights, but more especially these two: the one called _rakat_ or _saga-tim-bañgan_ (_Glycine abrus_ L or _abrus maculatus_ of the Batavian trans.), being the well-known scarlet pea with a black spot, twenty-four of which constitute a _mas_, and sixteen _mas_ (mace) a _tāil_ (_tael_): the other called _saga puku_ and _kondori batang_ (_Aden anthera pavonia_ L), a scarlet or rather coral bean much larger than the former, and without the black spot. It is the candarin weight of the Chinese, of which one hundred make a tāil and equal, according to the tables published by Stevens, to 5·7984 gr. Troy, but the average weight of those in my possession is 10·50 Troy grains. The tāil differs however in the northern and southern parts of the island, being at Natal, Padang, Bencoolen and elsewhere twenty-six pennyweights six grains. At Achin the _bangkal_ of thirty pennyweights twenty-one grains is the standard. Spanish dollars are everywhere current and accounts are kept in dollars, _sukus_ (imaginary quarter dollars) and _kepping_ or copper cash, of which four hundred go to the dollar. Besides these there are silver _fanams_, single, double and treble (the latter, called _tali_), coined at Madras, twenty-four _fanams_ or eight _talis_ being equal to the Spanish dollar, which is always valued in the English settlements at five shillings.” He adds that copper is sold by weight (_picul_), and that tin, which was accidentally discovered in 1710 by the burning of a house, is exported for the most part in small pieces or cakes called _tampangs_, sometimes in slabs (p. 172), and furthermore they purchase bar iron by measurement instead of by weight (p. 176).