stream, and on which the water had gradually deposited stratum upon stratum of sand and pebbles, the mass had become a hard substance, scarcely yielding in solidity to stone itself, in which coin after coin appeared to form some of the original component parts. Pieces of iron from the waggon or chest had also, in the process of oxidation, become pulpy, and still firmer bound and increased the strange conglomerate.
The earl's chest appears to have contained some curious and varied specimens of the currency then in use. Besides a number of sterlings of the Empire, Brabant, Lorraine, and Hainault, and the Scotch coins of Alexander II., John Baliol, and Robert Bruce, there was found a complete English series of those of the first Edward (fig. 150), who, at various times, had his money struck at several towns in England, Scotland, and Ireland.
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| fig. 150 |
There were also specimens of all the prelatical coins of Edward I., Edward II., as well as many of Henry III.,—both of his first and second coinage,—and a few of the most early of Edward II. On the whole, a finer museum of English, Scotch, and Irish coins was never before, under any circumstances, thrown open to the inspection of the antiquary and historian. Yet it seems very surprising that the English coins found should, with only one exception, have been of the same small size and value. This exception was a very beautiful coin of silver, about the size of half-a-crown, and of the reign of Edward I. Nor is it less surprising that the chest should have contained no jewellery or other valuable articles, one ring alone
