74 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



one on the Rhine and one on the Danube. When the soldiers 

 heard of the disgraceful transaction at home they rose in re- 

 volt and at once set out for the capital. Septimius Severus 

 had the shortest distance to go and reached Rome first. The 

 praetorians did not even attempt to defend their emperor who 

 was put to death along with forty senators, and the army pro- 

 claimed Severus emperor. He knew that as soon as the excite- 

 ment of the moment had passed, the people would not tolerate 

 a negro ruler so he very wisely committed the management of 

 affairs at the capital to the prefect of the new praetorian guard 

 and returned to the frontier where he spent a long and pros- 

 perous reign, only returning two or three times and then for a 

 few days only. He finally died in Britain at York. 



The cuts (figure 3) show front and back views of the coin 

 found in Dakota. Conjecture is useless as to hew it came there, 

 for the first white man to cross Dakota is supposed to have been 

 the French explorer Venendre, but the coin was more than 

 1400 years old when Venendre was born. French Jesuit priests 

 later worked among the Indians of Dakota, but it would be diffi- 

 cult to arrive at any reasonable hypothesis involving their con- 

 nection with it. 



Department op Botany, 

 State University. 



