ANCIENT ROMAN COIN. ■ ■ 63 



ing material, the other only seven feet. The object of all of them, however, is 

 to make a porous bed through which the water will percolate slowly enough to 

 insure efficient purification, but yet not so slowly as to make the process too 

 tedious and expensive. As to what should be the rate at which the process may 

 be carried on to be effective, is a point upon which authorities differ somewhat. 

 Dr. Tidy considers that it should be as nearly as possible two gallons per square 

 foot per hour ; Colonel Frank Bolton, the Water Examiner under the Metropoli- 

 tan Act of 1 87 1, thinks it may be two and a half gallons. All agree, however, 

 that it must not be too rapid. 



Such filter-beds as those of the London companies are only modifications of 

 the natural process of filtration up through beds of gravel and sand, from which 

 the best of spring water flows. Authorities say that the sand not only acts as a 

 strainer, but it performs the office of the rock in bringing every particle of the 

 water into close contact with the air. The sand, they tell us, is but a vast col- 

 lection of minute rocks; and every grain of sand is a particle of rock, incased in 

 a film of air. 



ANCIENT ROMAN COIN. 



St. Louis, April 27, 1882. 



Editor Kansas City Review : — The following account of an ancient coin 

 found in Illinois will without doubt be interesting to your readers. A few weeks 

 since Dr. J. F. Snyder of Virgirria, Cass Co., Illinios, wrote to me: "A rural 

 friend in this county some time ago found on his farm a curious bronze coin or 

 ornament, which he requested me to send to St. Louis or elsewhere for identifi- 

 cation. Supposing that you are a numismatician as well as an archaeologist, I 

 will send it to you for your opinion." 



Upon examination I identified it as a coin of Antiochus IV., surnamed Epi- 

 phanes, one of the kings of Syria, of the family of the Seleucidae, who reigned 

 from 175 B. C. to 164 B. C, and who is mentioned in the Bible (first book of 

 Maccabees, chapter i, verse 10) as a cruel persecutor of the Jews. 



The coin bears on one side a finely executed head of the King, and on the 

 obverse a sitting figure of Jupiter, bearing in his extended right hand a small figure 

 of Victory and in his left a wand or sceptre, with an inscription in ancient Greek 

 characters — basileos, antiochou, epiphanous, and another word partly defaced 

 which I believed to be nikephorou ; the translation of which is King Antiochus, 

 Epiphanes (Illustrious), the Victorious. When found it was very much black- 

 ened and corroded from long exposure, but when cleaned it appeared in a fine 

 state of preservation and but little worn. 



Yours truly, F. F. Hilder, 



