Excerpt from Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight Standards From the nature of this work, a certain amount of polemic was inevitable; but I trust that not a line will be found which contains anything which could be offensive to the living, or is disrespectful to great scholars now no more. I owe so much to the works of distinguished men, from whose principles I obliged to dissent, that I feel myself almost an ingrate who assails his benefactors with the very means provided for him by their labours. It now only remains for me to thank many friends, who have aided me and taken an interest in this work. To Mr J. G. Frazer, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, I am under obligations which I cannot adequately express in words. He has read through the proofs of the whole of this work, and there is scarcely a page which has not benefited from his most careful and acute criticism. Besides this his vast knowledge of the manners and customs of barbarous peoples has furnished me with many most valuable references, and his fine Ethnological Library has been ungrudgingly placed at my disposal. Professor W. Robertson Smith has read the proofs of those pages which deal with Semitic systems, and Prof. J. H. Middleton those treating of the Greek. By their kind sacrifice of time and labour which have been robbed from important works of their own, the many short comings of this book have been rendered far less numerous than they otherwise would be, but of course I alone am responsible for the manifold ones which remain. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.