It was cumbrous and but little calculated to arouse patriotic sentiments in its citizens.
Neither system completely differentiates long and short vowels; the Nestorian scheme is the more satisfactory, though more cumbrous.
The coins chiefly in use were (i) copper cash, which were strung in hundreds on strings of straw, and, as about 911 weight was equal to one shilling, were excessively cumbrous, but were nevertheless valued at their face value; (ii) nickel coins, which, being profitable to mint, were issued in enormous quantities, quickly depreciated, and were moreover extensively forged.
At first this cumbrous and complicated instrument of government worked tolerably well under the firm but cautious control of the chancellor, Count Arvid Beernhard Horn Political (q.v.).
To Napier seems to be due the first use of the decimal point in arithmetic. Decimal fractions were first introduced by Stevinus in his tract La Disme, published in 1585, but he used cumbrous exponents (numbers enclosed in circles) to distinguish the different denominations, primes, seconds, thirds, &c. Thus, for example, he would have written 123.456 as 123@4050603.