Indian Antiquary Vol 48

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 58

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[MAY, 1919
In 1786 Flouest says 35 that in Rangoon the best. silver was of ten per cent. alloy, and that silver of 25, 30, 40, and 50 per cent. was current. He gives a letter in full from
Basgim" Bassein), dated "le 15 Sbre, 1784" in which the writer says he "had settled an account, which at the present moment has reached 735 ticals, or 'roupis', of 25 per cent."
Anderson in Mandalay to Momien, p. 44, has an unconscious and exceedingly interesting note on the manufacture of lézège : silver (40% alloy). He says that at Bamò in 1868, a few persons were employed in melting silver for currency. “To six tichals of puro silver purchased from the Kakhyens [Kachins), one tickal eight annas of copper wire are added, and melted with alloy of as much lead as brings the whole to ten tickals weight."
Strettell, Ficus Elastica, p. 76, has an interesting but confused reference to silver standards on information taken from Capt. A. B. Bower's Bhamo Expedition Report, 1868, though he says it corresponds exactly with what he found to be the case himself. He says that the legal amount of alloy allowed in silver is that given below:
Nga-yay ( ngâzège :), very rough, containing 1 tikal silver, tikal lead, # tikal copper.
Ah saik-gnway ( asékke :), rough, contains 1 tikal silver, Atikal lead, tikal copper. Hnit-mat-gnway ( nasege :), 1 tikal silver, tikal lead, } tikal copper.
The only value the above information has lies in the fact that it shows how silver was alloyed for currency. The standards above referred to would be 50 %, 25% and 80% silver respectively: the last being apparently what he understood to be standard silver, a long way below ywetní or real standard silver.
The specimens figured in Plate I are :-sengajatke: , 15 per cent, alloy, fig. 10; asêkke, 36 25 per cent. alloy, fig. 11, which is the oyster-shell silver" of Ridgeway (p. 22); lézège : 40 per cent. alloy, figs. 9 and 13. The quality of the sengajatkèand asekke specimens could be judged by their appearance, but I had to get the lezégè: specimen tested by the usual assay process before an opinion was passed on it.
Fig. 12, Plate I, represents a class of silver sometimes met with and called ngwema "mother of silver." It has a fictitious value, as it is valued as a charm, because it contains within the bulge (visible in the figure) some grains of sand or grit, probably by an accident in the process of smelting, which make & sound when it is shaken.37
I have already remarked that value is estimated by reference to silver stendards, and hence fineness or touch is itself reckoned in terms of tickals, mus and pos, or more conveniently nowadays in terms of rupees, annas 8 and pies. All the names of standards in the lists above given are terms directly indicating touch on this principle.
35 Toung Pao, Vol. II, p. 41. Hunter, who was in Pegu the year before Flouest, says much the same thing in his Pegu, P. 85:- The purity of the silver, of which there are three degree established hy law or by custom : the 25 per cent., the 80 per cent. and the 75 per cent. The first has one fouth part; the second one half; the third three-fourths of alloy."
36 The word really means “one quarter alloy." The specimen give, in the Plate has three small AtAmne on it. no doubt the mark of fineness, and so this particular piece should be referred to the clasa of stamped lumps. The specimen shown, however, was chosen for its remarkable freshness 22 an illustre tion, and it is not usual to find asdkk silver stamped in any way. See later on. It is the ngwdz'd, the "moderately alloyed" silver of Stevenson's Dict. He also gives it the name ngwamwd 8 (hairy silver from tho "hairy or feathery appearance (mwangwd daung) on the surface of silver moderately alloyed."
37 With this may be compared the term shudma, “mother of gold," which, however, Stevenson. Dict., says is "pure gold ore," meaning thereby (1) nuggets or gold-dust.
3A The confusion between mis and annas is nothing now, for Bayfield writing in 1836, says (Hill Tracta between Assam and Burmah, p. 229):-"Each Burman, Shan, or. Singpho labourer pays six Burman annas (about half a rupee) for permission to dig." Here he meant six mds of yusinf or standard silver.