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20
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JANUARY, 1898.
2+1=3, therefore write ......... 334
65 3+ 6 = 9, therefore write ......... 394
4 + 5 = 9, therefore write ......... 399 Now because 2 + 14 =16 = Re. 1, add 399 and 1. Write....... 399
9+1=10, therefore write 390
9+1=10, therefore write 300
1 3+1 = 4, therefore write 400. Ans. Rs. 400. I may mention here13 that this process is really natural mental arithmetic, and is that followed by bank clerks all over Europe, when running ap accounts in books. It can with practice be gone through with extreme rapidity and accuracy. In ancient India the written process made a nearer approach to the mental tban is possible with the modern system of denoting numerals, because the ancient people did not express value by position, but by signs, and so wrote as they spoke and thought, and as all Europeans still speak and think,
The same writer goes on to say, Rangoon Garette, loc. cit., that :
The Siamese do not write Bs. A. P. As we do. The best explanation I can give of their method is by diagram
B
D
From A to Etam loongs are placed. One tam loong = 4 rupees. At B cbangs' are placed. One chang = 20 rupees. From F to C rupees. At G four-anne pieces. At D pice. And at I two-anna pieces. Thos ;
cala
would read : 3 tam loongs, 7 cbangs, 15 rupees, 6 annas (4 and 2), and 3 pice, or Rs. 167-6-3."
These statements do not, however, work out as the writer makes them, for two reasons. Assuming that the tickal and its parts bave already been superseded by the rupee and its parts, - a fact of great importance to the present enquiry - the "tam loong" the Siamese tael = 4 rupees, as stated, but the change the Siamese catty = 20 taels = therefore, 80, not 20, rupees. Secondly, in the figured diagram the parts of the rapee are wrongly stated for the total required, and for the lower ciphers 2, 4, and 3 we should read 1,1, and 1, and for “3 pice" we should read "3 pie." . E. g., the total according to the diagram works out to
19 See ante, Vol. XX. p. 55.
