The Dutch supply was augmented in a different manner. They soon found the native manufactories inadequate to the demand and erected mints of their own, and by introducing steel drills and polishing lathes won a great advantage over the original wearisome hand processes. The French sought a still greater advantage by substituting porcelain for shells, but the Indians were not to be thus easily imposed upon, and the manufacture of earthen money was soon given up.[37] It is sometimes asserted that the English engaged in making wampum, though the statement appeared to be without foundation. The Dutch, however, produced it in large quantities, and were thereby enabled to enlarge the circle of their own posts; and also to furnish liberal supplies to the traders, north and south, who ranged over the entire Atlantic coast from the St. Lawrence to the gulf. In Virginia, the Carolinas, and later in Georgia, wampum was the chief medium employed in the fur trade. The poverty of the early settlers, added to that short sighted and now obsolete policy of Europe in the seventeenth century, which jealously sought to keep all specie within her borders, produced a general dearth of the precious metals in the currency of the New World, and all kinds of shifts were made to eke out the scanty supply. Corn, wheat, oats, peas, poultry and the like sufficed to satisfy any obligation. But then, though answering well in cases of barter, where two mutual desires met, were far too bulky and unwieldy for general use. Naturally then recourse was had to an article in extensive use among the traders, and possessing in a measure the portability of gold and silver, and _wampum_ became a constituent part of the currency. In one feature at least, the old civilization held its own beside the new. As early as 1637, wampum was made a legal tender in Massachusetts for any sum under 12_d._, at the rate of six beads for a penny.[38] The same year it became a legal tender in Connecticut for any amount. The general court declaring it receivable for taxes "at fousen (4) a penny."[39]