Quaternary traces are repeatedly to be found among the Indian languages of British Columbia.

In describing the Columbians, Bancroft says: "Systems of numeration are simple, proceeding by fours, fives, or tens, according to the different languages...."[198] The same preference for four is said to have existed in primitive times in the languages of Central Asia, and that this form of numeration, resulting in scores of 16 and 64, was a development of finger counting.[199] In the Hawaiian and a few other languages of the islands of the central Pacific, where in general the number systems employed are decimal, we find a most interesting case of the development, within number scales already well established, of both binary and quaternary systems.

Their origin seems to have been perfectly natural, but the systems themselves must have been perfected very slowly.

In Tahitian, Rarotongan, Mangarevan, and other dialects found in the neighbouring islands of those southern latitudes, certain of the higher units, _tekau_, _rau_, _mano_, which originally signified 10, 100, 1000, have become doubled in value, and now stand for 20, 200, 2000.

In Hawaiian and other dialects they have again been doubled, and there they stand for 40, 400, 4000.[200] In the Marquesas group both forms are found, the former in the southern, the latter in the northern, part of the archipelago; and it seems probable that one or both of these methods of numeration are scattered somewhat widely throughout that region.
The origin of these methods is probably to be found in the fact that, after the migration from the west toward the east, nearly all the objects the natives would ever count in any great numbers were small,--as yams, cocoanuts, fish, etc.,--and would be most conveniently counted by pairs.
Hence the native, as he counted one pair, two pairs, etc., might readily say _one_, _two_, and so on, omitting the word "pair" altogether.