932 PHIJLOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. j^ANNO 1774. 



From what has been here laid down it seems highly probable, that this quina- 

 rius first appeared about the year of Rome 494, or rather that its first appearance 

 was a little anterior to that year. Which if we admit, it will follow, that the 

 Romans borrowed the monogrammatic way of writing rather from the Etruscans 

 than the Greeks, as I asserted in one of my former papers; with the first of 

 which nations they were perfectly well acquainted, even from the very beginning 

 of their state; whereas they seem to have had little or no intercourse with the 

 other, when the piece in question was coined. It remains, therefore, that what 

 I advanced, in the paper here referred to, is clearly and indubitably true. 



With regard to monograms in general, it may not be improper to remark, 

 that they were known and used in several parts of the east, from pretty remote 

 antiquity. They occur on some of the Hebrew, or Samaritan, and Phoenician 

 coins, as well as on the Greek and Roman. I have an exceedingly curious He-f 

 brew, or Samaritan coin, coeval with Simon the Just, prince and high priest o 

 the Jews, with a monogram on it. That the Phoenicians were not unacquainted 

 with monograms, has been admitted by the learned and ingenious M. Pellerin, 

 and is evinced by one or two of the Phoenician inscriptions on the stones found 

 in the ruins of Citium. That the Arabs likewise anciently used them, on cer- 

 tain occasions, we learn from the ligatures of the Kufic letters, and the inscrip- 

 tions still remaining on several of the earlier Arabic coins. Nay, they are not 

 disused among the modern Arabs, in their common writing, even at this very 

 day. As for the Greeks, nothing is more common than ligatures, or mono- 

 grams, on their coins. That the Palmyrenes also had several such ligatures, or 

 complex characters, I have many years since incontestably proved. 



With respect to the Romans, nothing is more certain than that combinations 

 of 1, 3, and even 4 elements, formed into one character, not seldom occur on 

 their coins. More extensive or complex ligatures than the monograms of 4 

 letters on their ancient medals very rarely appear. I have, however, an inedited 

 semissis of the Pompeian family, with the head of Saturn, and behind it the 

 letter s, the mark of the semissis, on one side ; and the prow of a ship, over 

 which is a monogram composed of the 3 letters, q, p, o, m, p. 



XXXIV. Astronomical Observations made at Chislehurst, in Kent, in the Year 

 1773. By the Rev. F. Wollaston, LL.B., F.R.S. p. 329. 



Mr. W. having the last 2 winters communicated to the r. s. what astronomictil 

 observations he had occasionally made in the course of each year, it seems to be 

 a call on him to continue the same now. His instruments and situation are the 

 same as before-described; and the accompanying tables are in the same form as the 

 last year. His clock has been kept going on, without any alteration of any kind; 



