MINING OPERATIONS OF THE ROMANS. 25 



exofpa tricii. It appears probable tbat they were of 

 British origin, though found in Ireland.* 



Besides showing the extent of the mining Operations of 

 the Romans throughout England, the above-mentioned 

 discoveries also give us their date. The oldest pigs are 

 those bearing the names of Claudius and his son Britan- 

 niens ; they cannot be later than A.D. 49. On the other 

 hand the ingot of silver may be referred to a period not 

 long antecedent to the terraination of the Roman power 

 in this country. 



By taking in succession the Enghsh counties, we have 

 been led to the evidences of the produetion of silver and 

 lead by the Romans. We shall now take Wales, and 

 there find proofs that they also obtained copper. 



I am indebted to Mr. Thomas Wright for the informa- 

 tion, that the copper veins at Llan-y-menach, near 

 Oswestry, were worked by the Romans. Roman coins of 

 Antoninus, Faustina, and others, have been found in the 

 recesses of the mine. But further north the evidences 

 are much more ample and distinet. 



Mr. Pennant describes a mass of copper, weighing 42 fb ; 

 it is in the shape of a cake of bees-wax, the diameter of 

 the upper part being 1 1 in., and its thickness in the middle 

 2| in. ; on the upper surface is a deep impression with the 

 words SOCIO ROM.E. It is conjeetured that the merchant 

 or owner of the cake intended this inscription to signify 

 that he consigned it to his partner at Rome. Across this 

 inscription is impressed obliquely nat sol, meaning, 

 perhaps, NataU Solum, and intended to show that the 

 Roman adventurer still remembered his native country. 

 It was found at Caer Hen, the ancient Conovium, four 



* Rev. John Scott Porter, in Ulster Journal of Archceology, May, 1854, 

 p. 184. See also, Arch. Journal, vol. XII., p. 97. 



