It is itemized in the invoice illustrated in LL/9702 on the last line shown in the cropped illustration. It reads 1 Bot Rot Stone 4/- . What can that mean? It means One Bottle Rotten Stone Four Bits. In mid nineteenth century America it was not uncommon to find preliminary calculations using the Spanish system of Bits, eight bits to the dollar. The 8 reales coin was roughly the equivalent of the silver dollar so chopping it up into eight pieces by first cutting it in half, then each half into quarters and then each quarter in two again basically like cutting an apple pie into eight equal portions was the practical way to get eight pretty uniform slivers. During the first half of the nineteenth century till its repeal by Congress in 1857, Spanish coinage was legal tender in the United States! This gave America metal currency that was not coming out of the US Mint fast enough to meet the demand. (Matt Isenburg)
