VOL. LIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 679 



which Mr. S. now sends a short account, agrees with that denarius in every par- 

 ticular, but the letter on the reverse ; which is e, not c. But this is so far 

 from overturning M. Pellerin's notion, that it will, he thinks, strongly support, 

 if not entirely confirm it. For that these coins, and others similar to them, 

 first appeared about the time of the social war, must be allowed extremely pro- 

 bable, from the^ symbols on the reverse which most of them exhibit. The letter 

 E, on the reverse of this denarius, has a Samnite, Samnite-Etruscan, or oriental, 

 direction, from the right hand to the left; which will, notwithstanding the 

 Roman letters in the exergue, sufficiently armounce it a Samnite, or Samnite- 

 Etruscan, coin. This also will, in some measure, be evinced by the character 

 itself; which more resembles the ancient Etruscan form of e, than the later 

 Roman, or Latin figure of that element. Now the old name of the city, to 

 which both the medals here mentioned may be assigned, was Corfinium, and 

 the new one, given it by the confederated Italian states, Italica, as we learn 

 from Strabo. As the Samnites therefore and old Romans are known to have 

 used E sometimes for 1, the element e, on the reverse of this medal, may very 

 well be supposed to have been the initial letter of the word Etalica, for Italica, 

 the new name mentioned by Strabo. That the Samnites sometimes used e for 

 'i, we may infer from the word embratvr, for imperator, on some of Papius 

 Mutilus's Samnite coins, to omit others that might, with equal facility, be pro- 

 duced ; and that the ancient Romans likewise did, not unfrequently, the same 

 thing, is indisputably clear. Whence we may, as Mr. S. apprehends, fairly 

 collect, that M. Pellerin's denarius was struck about the time the league was 

 formed, or concluded, in commemoration of it ; and this after the commence- 

 ment of the war, which was the immediate consequence of that league. 



LXI. Observation of the Transit of Venus, June 8, 1769. By John Leeds, 

 Esq., Surveyor General of the Province of Maryland, p. 444. 



Having no other instruments to observe with but a pocket watch and a reflect- 

 ing telescope about 20 inches long, of Sterrup's make, on the 3d instant, (June) 

 when the sun was on the meridian, Mr. L. set his watch to 12, and at half an 

 hour past, began to observe, keeping his eye to that part of the sun's limb a 

 little north of the vertex, where he expected Venus to come on. At 2'' 10"i he 

 perceived a small dent in the sun's limb ; at 1^ 25""^ Venus was totally within, 

 so that the upper edge of the sun and Venus seemed to touch. Mr. L.'s situ- 

 ation was lat. 38" 45', under a meridian, as near as he can guess, 10 miles east 

 of Annapolis, their chief town or city ; and about 12 miles west of Cape Henry, 

 at the mouth of Chesapeak Bay, as laid down by Fry and Jefferson in their map 

 of Virginia and Maryland. 



