The equation in our text is 10,000 _x_ = 70,000 saggi of gold, giving _x_, or the unit sought, = 7 _saggi_. But in both Ramusio on the one hand, and in the Geog. Latin and Crusca Italian texts on the other hand, the equivalent of the toman is 80,000 _saggi_; though it is true that neither with one valuation nor the other are the calculations consistent in any of the texts, except Ramusio’s.[1] This consistency does not give any greater weight to Ramusio’s reading, because we know that version to have been _edited_, and corrected when the editor thought it necessary: but I adopt his valuation, because we shall find other grounds for preferring it. The unit of the _toman_ then is = 8 _saggi_. The Venice saggio was one-sixth of a Venice ounce. The Venice mark of 8 ounces I find stated to contain 3681 grains troy;[2] hence the _saggio_ = 76 grains. But I imagine the term to be used by Polo here and in other Oriental computations, to express the Arabic _misḳál_, the real weight of which, according to Mr. Maskelyne, is 74 grains troy. The _misḳál_ of gold was, as Polo says, something more than a ducat or sequin, indeed, weight for weight, it was to a ducat nearly as 1·4:1. Eight _saggi_ or _misḳáls_ would be 592 grains troy. The tael is 580, and the approximation is as near as we can reasonably expect from a calculation in such terms. Taking the silver tael at 6_s._ 7_d._, the gold tael, or rather the _ting_, would be = 3_l._ 5_s._ 10_d._; the _toman_ = 32,916_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._; and the whole salt revenue (80 tomans) = 2,633,333_l._; the revenue from other sources (210 tomans) = 6,912,500_l._; total revenue from Kinsay and its province (290 tomans) = 9,545,833_l._ A sufficiently startling statement, and quite enough to account for the sobriquet of Marco Milioni. Pauthier, in reference to this chapter, brings forward a number of extracts regarding Mongol finance from the official history of that dynasty. The extracts are extremely interesting in themselves, but I cannot find in them that confirmation of Marco’s accuracy which M. Pauthier sees. First as to the salt revenue of Kiang-Ché, or the province of Kinsay. The facts given by Pauthier amount to these: that in 1277, the year in which the Mongol salt department was organised, the manufacture of salt amounted to 92,148 _yin_, or 22,115,520 _kilos._; in 1286 it had reached 450,000 _yin_, or 108,000,000 _kilos._; in 1289 it fell off by 100,000 _yin_. The price was, in 1277, 18 _liang_ or taels, in _chao_ or paper-money of the years 1260–64 (see vol. i. p. 426); in 1282 it was raised to 22 taels; in 1284 a permanent and reduced price was fixed, the amount of which is not stated.