DOLLAR, a coin current in the United States of America, parts of South America, the Eastern Archipelago, China, and some of the states of con tinental Europe. It is usually the largest silver coin of a country. The Amelican dollar is divided into 100 cents, and 1.3 valued at about 4s. 2d. There are Sicilian, Austrian, and Spanish dollars, which are estimated according to their weights and fineness.
In the Archipelago, the dollar coins of the highest value are what are called dollars,' from two pillars, supposed to represent the Pillars of Ilereules, which are stamped on the reverse of the coins of Carolus 111. and iv. The coinage of the independent states of South America, and even those of Ferdinand of Spain, are only current at a considerable discount. Almost the entire exportable produce of Aeheen and the Pedier coasts is raised by the Batta and other nations of the interior, who sell it to the Malays of the coast, who again resell it to stmngers.
The Batta, like many other of the brown-com plexioned tribes of the Archipelago, have a singular custom of melting down the precious metals they obtain into circular plates, which are connected with their religions. The Pillar dollars, probably owing to the superior purity of the metal, are more easily melted down than the Mexican dollars, which require a degree of heat that the Batts are unable to produce. The Anglo-American traders who visit the west coast therefore hit upon the system of melting down the Mexican dollars in the United States, and coining them into Pillar dollars, so that an equalization in the value of these coins is likely soon to take place ; but as the Batta require the dollars almost solely for the purpose of melting down, it may be doubted whether this new system may not materially affect the production of exportable articles.—Sionnout& Diet.