M. Longperier; "On the Coins of Huath King of Northumberland," and "On the Coins of the Achæan League,” by John Lindsay, Esq.; "Remarks on the Marquis de Lagoy's Description of inedited Medals of Massilia, Glanum, the Canicenses, and the Auscii ;"" On Medallic Engraving," by Vincent Nolte, Esq.; "On the Coins of Marcus J. Brutus and of Decimus Brutus ;""On the Coins of Allectus and Constans;" "On the Coins of the Ancient Britons;" "On Tradesmen's Tokens ;" "On the Money called Lucullea;" "On the Class of Coins denominated 'Restored,'" by the Rev. E. C. Brice; "On the Ancient Coins of Great Britain, considered as Works of Art."

I shall close these incidental notices by alluding to Mr. T. L. Donaldson's letter to the Duke of Sussex, of which the writer has presented a number of copies to the Society. It contains a plan for the promotion of art, science, and literature, aided by the moderate but effectual assistance of government; and among many interesting suggestions advanced by Mr. Donaldson, that of a building in some central position in the metropolis, exclusively appropriated to the use of literary and scientific bodies, claims particular attention. That this and other public institutions, and, as a consequence, the interests of science and literature, would be materially benefited by the carrying out of such a plan, there is no room to doubt.

I shall now return to the subjects more immediately connected with our Society. At the meeting of March 15th, a communication was read by an intrepid traveller, on the Numismatics of the New World, in which we are informed, among various matters of interest, that the seeds of the cocoa-tree were used in Mexico* in the time of the early Aztec kings as a substitute for a currency; and that

* It was in Mexico, remarks Mr. Bollaert, that the first (South American) mint was established; and it would appear that the same architect built the noble mints of Potosi and Chili. There were mints likewise at Lima, Santa Fe da Bogota, Guatemala, &c.

one of the species of the capsicum, called the Indian Uchu, was adopted in some villages of Peru, as a monetary medium. These are curious numismatic and botanical facts, and the more so, as being practised in a country famous for its mineral riches and other treasures.

These facts are interesting to numismatists, because they add another representative for money to the numerous ones already known—as the gold rings of Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia, and of the Phoenicians and Celts; the cowries of Africa; the cattle of ancient Greece and Etruria; the leather used in cases of emergency in England, France, and Holland, and also in Tartary;† the lead money of the Romans and English; and the red feathers of the islands of the Pacific Ocean.

In reference to the foregoing relationship of Numismatics with botany, it may be recollected, that the weights of the Romans are said to have derived their form from the seeds of the lentil; and by a statute made in the thirty-first year of King Edward I., the penny was directed to be bound and not clipped, and to be equal in weight to thirty-two grains of wheat taken from the middle of the ear.‡

* The leather money of Edward I. bore his name, stamp, and picture. -Ruding.

+ From a passage in Mandeville's "Voiage," London, 1727, 8vo. p. 287, it appears that both a leather and paper currency existed in Tartary during the fourteenth century, and that it was the only representative of money throughout the dominions of the Great Khan, under whose authority it was issued, and, like our bank-notes, renewed when worn out by circulation.

So the carat used for weighing gold, from its first introduction into the mint by Henry III., is a bean, the fruit of an Abyssinian tree called koara. This bean, from the time of its being gathered, varies very little in weight; and it seems to have been in the earliest ages a weight for gold in Africa. In India, it is used as a weight for diamonds, &c. (See Bruce's " Travels," vol. v. p. 66.)

On this subject, my friend, the Rev. G. C. Renouard, has favoured me with the following remark, 'Carat, a small weight used by goldsmiths and lapidaries; is a corruption of the Arabic word bl, Kirat, bor

It has in fact been repeatedly and most truly observed, that the cultivation of the various branches of art and science by different societies, not only tends to the advancement of each of these branches in particular, but, that such is the natural connexion that exists between them all, they mutually and reciprocally assist each other: so that whilst a member may be pursuing his favourite study, and diving into the recesses of nature, in order to bring to light some new fact; in the attainment of this object, he often trenches upon other subjects which may lead to discoveries in some kindred department of natural history or of the arts. This position is forcibly illustrated by the physical inquiries of the Rev. J. B. Reade, to which I have alluded; and also by a communication which has been made to the Geological Society by another associate of our labours (Mr. Bollaert), on the metalliferous veins of the Peruvian provinces.

The thanks of the Society are also due to their learned secretary, Mr. Cullimore, whose chronological and Egyptian labours are well known to this Society and the literary public, for his memoir on the darics, in which several points of great interest to the historian, chronologist, numismatist, and geographer, have been ably treated; and among these an interesting fact connected with the advancement of numismatic science, that of the connexion of the Persepolitan sculptures with the darics, which is elucidated by a cylinder or rolling seal,* purchased by the

rowed from the Greek Kigation, pronounced Kerát by the modern Greeks, and signifying the bean of the Siliqua dulcis of the ancients-the Kharat of the Arabs; whence our carat is called by scientific botanists Ceratonia Siliqua.

*The following is an extract from a communication from Mr. Cullimore:"That cylinders were commonly used as seals by the Babylonians, is clear from Herodotus; and that they were used as pledges is in an equal degree proved by Mr. Landseer, in his 'Sabæan Researches,' as in the case of the patriarch Judah. It hence looks, as if, to a limited extent, they may be considered numismatic. There, however, would appear to be no actual duplicates (the inscriptions being always

British Museum at the sale of Mr. Salt's Egyptian collection, and which is probably unique, confirmed by a cylinder in the Museum of Leyden, and subsequently by another which has come into my possession. I here submit to the Society a sketch of the first mentioned of these cylinders in an accurate wood-cut, together with

engraved sketches of the others, accompanied by the analogous daric type, and an additional Persepolitan cylinder deposited in the British Museum by Mr. Bonomi.

Certain analogies between some classes of these gems -principally the Babylonian-and the votive tablets of Egypt-had been for some time made known by Dr. Grotefend and Mr. Cullimore; but this fact connects the Persepolitan sculptures of the best period of Oriental art, which was about the reign of Darius Hystaspes (whose name is equally read on the sculptures in question, and on the unique cylinder of Mr. Salt), with numismatic science; while it is known that Babylonian designs appear on a variety of medals, having Phoenician and Greek inscriptions of Phoenicia, Asia Minor, Cyprus, Macedon, and countries as far westward as Sicily and Carthage. The question will no doubt be followed up and fully in

different when the types are alike, so far as I have examined them), and this looks as if all had reference to different families, like armorial bearings. The more numerous they become, they are the more valuable, in consequence of the data which are thus afforded for a cycle of ancient art, and perhaps also of literature and mythology."

vestigated by our learned and valued associate, Professor Grotefend, and the other scholars who have made this branch of inquiry the object of their study; and I doubt not, that, by perseverance, they will succeed in the complete elucidation of it.

Nor should I omit to mention Mr. Bonomi's interesting present to the Society of two specimens of the gold ring-money, now current in Nubia, obtained by him from a Jelab, or slave-merchant, when travelling in that country; and his valuable communication on the currencies of Egypt, Nubia, Kordofan, and Darfour, which accompanied them, and was read at our meeting of May 24th. It is evident, from this communication, that in the small gold rings presented to us, and in the larger silver rings, also current in Nubia, which all consist of bent wire, not joined, but adapted to be connected in the form of a chain, we have the actual representation of the currency of the ancient Ethiopians and Egyptians, as appears by the hieroglyphic sculptures and paintings, in which it is not uncommon to see men weighing rings, and a scribe taking note of their number and valuethe gold rings being painted yellow, and the silver white, with the hieroglyphics of those metals occasionally engraved or painted near them. A similar chain of rings to that of the Jelab, from whom Mr. Bonomi obtained those in question, is moreover represented among the offerings brought by a people of the south to Pharaoh Rameses II., as depicted on the walls of the small temple at Kalabshe, in Nubia, where, as well as in Egypt, the practice of weighing money is still in use.

The statement of Mr. Bonomi is confirmed by Mr. Wilkinson, in various passages of his excellent work on the "Topography of Thebes," in which he mentions gold and silver rings, like those still common in Sennaar, among the tributes brought by the Ethiopians to the Pharaohs-Thothmos III. and Amenoph III.—as repre