velope, are another
form of money. The selection of a predominant ware is shown in
such cases as the one described in Ling Roth.[317] When Low was
at Kiau, in 1851, beads and brass wire were wanted. When others
were there some years later the people all had their hearts set
on brass wire. The Englishmen "distributed a good deal of cloth,
at reasonable rates, in exchange for food and services rendered."
In 1858 they found that even brass wire, unless of very great
size, was despised, and cloth was eagerly desired.

One thing which helped the selection of a predominant ware was
that only a specified article would make peace, atone for a
wrong, compose a quarrel, or ransom a captive. Also various
articles obtained such prestige, on account of age and the glory
of ancestors, that the possession of them conferred authority and
social importance on their owners. Such are porcelain jars in
Borneo, bronze drums in Burma, bronze cannon in the East-Indian
Archipelago. Many African chiefs stored up ivory tusks for social
prestige long before the white men came and gave them value in
world commerce.[318]

+149. Stone money in Melanesia.+ We must, however, turn our
attention to Melanesia where the shell and stone money have been
pushed to a most remarkable development, quite out of line with
the rest of the Melanesian civilization. On the Solomon Islands
there are some petty reef communities which occupy themselves
solely with fishing and making shell-bead money.[319] On New
Britain divarra is made by boring and stringing fathoms of shell
money. A fathom is worth two shillings sterling, and two hundred
and fifty fathoms coiled up together looks like a life buoy.[320]
In the northwestern Solomon Islands the currency consists of
beasts' teeth of two kinds,--those of a kind of flying dog and of
a kind of dolphin. Each tooth is bored at the root and they are
strung on thin cords. These people also use the small disks of
shell, five millimeters in diameter and from one to one and a
half millimeters thick.[321] The shell money of New Britain has
very great influence on the lives of the people. It minimizes the
evil and fatality of war, in which every life and every wound
must be paid for. It establishes the right of property. It makes
the people frugal and industrious, and makes them a commercial
people. To it may also be a