TESSERA CONSULARES. 427 
their fisheries alone is $15,000,000 per annum ; and they have im- 
mense available supplies of timber, iron, and coal, together with 
more than one thousand miles of sea coast, provided with excellent 
harbours. The total population of British America at the present 
moment approaches four millions, and the quantity of land available 
for agricultural purposes, is approximately 267,000 square miles—or 
more than twice the area of the United Kingdom of Great Britain 
and Ireland; and equal to France (including Corsica), Belgium, 
Holland, and Portugal combined. 
This portion of the British empire contains within itself all those 
elements of material wealth which assist in creating populous and 
powerful nations ; and besides these advantages, it possesses unsur- 
passed facilities for becoming the great commercial highway between 
the Pacific and the Atlantic. With such resources and possible 
future, it is neither vain nor premature to consider the expediency of 
consolidating the interests of the different and virtually independent 
Governments into which it is now divided, and of securing the 
speedy occupation and future allegiance of the key-stone of the 
arch, Centrat British America, upon which their prospective 
political and commercial position, as a great Federation, will be 
mainly dependent. 
TESSERA CONSULARES.* 
BY THE REV. JOHN M°CAUL, LL.D., 
PRESIDENT OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, TORONTO, AND OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTR: 
Tue relics of antiquity, which are known by the designation 
tessere consulares, are small oblong pieces of ivory or bone, with four- 
faces,} bearing an inscription, a part of which is cut on each of the 
* Mommsen, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, vol. i. p.195. Berlin, 1863. 
Cardinali, Diplomi Imperial, p. 121. Velletri, 1838 
Morcelli, Delle tessere degli spettacoli Rom., ed. Labus, Milan, 1827. 
+ There is one which has six faces. See Marini, Atti, p, §22. It bears the inscription— 
PINITVS 
ALLETI 
SP:K:FEB 
T1-CL:CAES IL 
C:CAEC 
Cos 
