516 ANTIQUITIES 



that it was not unknown to the Romans. Old people 

 remember to have heard their fathers and grandfathers 

 say that, in dry summers and in windy weather, pieces 

 of money were sometimes found round the verge of 

 Wolmer Pond ; and tradition had inspired the foresters 

 with a notion that the bottom of that lake contained 

 great stores of treasure. During the spring and sum- 

 mer of 1740 there was little rain; and the following 

 summer also, 1741, was so uncommonly dry, that many 

 springs and ponds failed, and this lake in particular, 

 whose bed became as dusty as the surrounding heaths 

 and wastes. This favourable juncture induced some 

 of the forest cottagers to begin a search, which was 

 attended with such success, that all the labourers in 

 the neighbourhood flocked to the spot, and with spades 

 and hoes turned up great part of that large area. 

 Instead of pots of coins, as they expected, they found 

 great heaps, the one lying on the other, as if shot out 

 of a bag; many of which were in good preservation. 

 Silver and gold these inquirers expected to find ; but 

 their discoveries consisted solely of many hundreds of 

 Roman copper coins, and some medallions, all of the 

 lower empire. There was not much virtti stirring at 

 that time in this neighbourhood ; however, some of 

 the gentry and clergy around bought what pleased them 

 best, and some dozens fell to the share of the author 2 . 



The owners at first held their commodity at a high 

 price; but finding that they were not likely to meet 

 with dealers at such a rate, they soon lowered their 

 terms, and sold the fairest as they could. The coins 



the middle of the mound, fragments of human bones and of pottery. In 

 one instance, but a few years since, an entire urn was obtained, of a sub- 

 stance not unlike unburned clay, capable of containing about a gallon, 

 and having within it fragments of bones. All these indications concur to 

 prove that these barrows were of British origin in Roman times. E. T. B. 

 2 Such coins are still occasionally found by labourers and others who 

 work upon the Forest ; but their occurrence is now uncommon. They 

 have not been found in numbers since the time mentioned by Gilbert 

 White, and it is only casually that one is met with. E. T. B. 



