uniform goodness of those different commodities when brought to market.

The first public stamps of this kind that were affixed to the current
metals, seem in many cases to have been intended to ascertain, what it was
both most difficult and most important to ascertain, the goodness or
fineness of the metal, and to have resembled the sterling mark which is at
present affixed to plate and bars of silver, or the Spanish mark which is
sometimes affixed to ingots of gold, and which, being struck only upon one
side of the piece, and not covering the whole surface, ascertains the
fineness, but not the weight of the metal. Abraham weighs to Ephron the four
hundred shekels of silver which he had agreed to pay for the field of
Machpelah. They are said, however, to be the current money of the merchant,
and yet are received by weight, and not by tale, in the same manner as
ingots of gold and bars of silver are at present. The revenues of the
ancient Saxon kings of England are said to have been paid, not in money, but
in kind, that is, in victuals and provisions of all sorts. William the
Conqueror introduced the custom of paying them in money. This money,
however, was for a long time, received at the exchequer, by weight, and not
by tale,

The inconveniency and difficulty of weighing those metals with exactness,
gave occasion to the institution of coins, of which the stamp, covering
entirely both sides of the piece, and sometimes the edges too, was supposed
to ascertain not only the fineness, but the weight of the metal. Such
coins, therefore, were received by tale, as at present, without the trouble
of weighing.

The denominations of those coins seem originally to have expressed the
weight or quantity of metal contained in them. In the time of Servius
Tullius, who first coined money at Rome, the Roman as or pondo contained a