Passing to the islands of the Pacific we shall find shell money playing an important part among the primitive peoples, such as those who inhabit New Ireland, New Britain, the Pelew and the Caroline groups. It will suffice for our purpose to describe the form in which it is employed in New Britain. Mr Powell[26] tells us that the native money in New Britain consists of small cowrie shells strung on strips of cane, in Duke of York Island it is called Dewarra. It is measured in lengths, the first length being from hand to hand across the chest with arms extended, second length from the centre of the breast to the hand of one arm extended, the third from the shoulder to the tip of the fingers along the arm, fourth from the elbow to the tip of the fingers, fifth from the wrist to the tip of the fingers, sixth finger lengths. Fish are generally bought by the length in Dewarra unless they are too small. A large pig will cost from 30 to 40 lengths of the first measure (fathom) and a small one ten. The Dewarra is made up for convenience in coils of 100 fathoms or first lengths; sometimes as many as 600 fathoms are coiled together, but not often, as it would be too bulky to remove quickly in case of invasion or war, when the women carry it away to hide. These coils are very neatly covered with wickerwork like the bottom of our cane chairs.... At Moko and Utuan they use another kind of money as well as this, the other being a little bivalve shell, through which they bore a hole and string it on pieces of native made twine[27]. It is also chipped all round until it is a quarter of an inch in diameter and then smoothed down into even discs with sand and pumice. Here we find strings of shells, which undoubtedly in the first instance were used for personal adornment, converted into a true currency. The simple savages whose possessions were exceedingly few and scanty, equated their fish to strings of shells which formed their only ornament, and when they got a more valuable possession in the pig, they quickly learned to appraise that animal in shell worth, just as the North American Indians learned to estimate the horse in _Wampum_. Instead of shells the natives of Fiji are said to have employed whales’ teeth as currency, red teeth (which are still highly prized) standing to white ones somewhat in the ratio of sovereigns to shillings with us[28]. Passing on to the mainland of Asia we shall find that the Chinese, who in the course of ages have developed a bronze coinage of their own apart from the influences of the Mediterranean people, had in early times an elaborate system of shell money. Cowries appear in the _Ya-King_, the oldest Chinese book, 100,000 dead shell fishes being an equivalent for riches. Tortoise shell currency is also mentioned in the same book. The tortoise of various kinds and sizes was used for the greater values which would have required too many cowries. Tortoise shell is still elegantly used to express coin.