18 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1770. 



inch at what height the mercury stood at each distance; so that the weight of 

 each column of air of 20 feet, to the height it could be raised, would be found 

 pretty exactly. And if a proper apparatus were fixed for raising the barometer, 

 the experiments might be repeated, as often as requisite, with very little trouble. 



XT. Observations on an Inedited Greek Coin of Philistis, Queen of Syracuse, 

 Malta, and Gozo, who has been passed over in Silence by all the ancient 

 Writers. By the Rev. John Swinton, B. D., F. R. S. p. 80. 

 The ancient piece Mr. S. proposes to consider here, has a place in the very 

 valuable collection of the Rev. Mr. Godwyn, Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, 

 who has been possessed of it several years. It exhibits on one side the same 

 veiled head of a woman that occurs on a coin of Gozo, before described; and 

 on the other the figures forming the type, or symbol, on the reverse of that 

 coin. Before the face of the veiled head, on Mr. Godwyn's piece, is the Greek 

 word BA2IAI2SAI; and on the reverse the name <t)IAI2TIA02, philistidis, 

 in the exergue. The medal is of nearly the size of the middle Roman brass, or 

 rather of some of the Syracusian brass coins of the middle form. The head on 

 the anterior part is tolerably well preserved, but the type on the other is in much 

 the same shattered condition as that exhibited by a coin of Gozo, considered 

 in a former paper, both of them having suffered not a little from the injuries of 

 time. In fine, were it not for the legends, in different languages and characters, 

 these two ancient pieces would agree in all respects, and might be considered as 

 duplicates of the same medal. However, the Greek word on the anterior part, 

 and the Greek name on the reverse, will sufficiently, he apprehends, announce 

 the piece in question an inedited coin. 



From this medal, in conjunction with those of Gozo, published by the Mar- 

 quis Scipio MafFei, Sig. Abate Venuti, and the r. s. and that of Malta to be met 

 with in M. Spon, it will most evidently follow, that they are all coins of Phi- 

 listis; and that this princess was queen of Malta and Gozo, when those islands 

 were under the domination of the Greeks, and occupied by them and the Phoe- 

 nicians. Which if we admit, it will further follow, that all those pieces were 

 struck before the Carthaginians were possessed of Malta and Gozo. For the 

 settlement of the Phoenicians in those islands was undoubtedly prior to that of 

 the Greeks, and the Carthaginians succeeded the latter in the occupation of 

 them. The medals therefore of Gozo by Mr. S. formerly named Punic, since 

 the discovery of Mr. Godwyn's coin, he would rather denominate Phoenician, 

 as being struck when the Phoenicians remained in that island. This seems to 

 have been suspected by Sig. Abate Venuti, when he affirms the piece so perfectly 

 similar to Mr. Godwyn's to be a Phoenician medal, or at least one of the most 

 ancient Carthaginian coins; but, by Mr. Godwyn's piece, it is rendered abso- 



