October 21, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



197 



most part, must be placed outside our consideration. Tliey never 

 had a market in England. The fact is, these coins are much too 

 numerous for any private individual to make anything like a repre- 

 sentative series of each class, and their acquisition must be left to 

 national collections, where one naturally expects to find every coin- 

 age well represented. The result of our observations on the 

 English side of numismatics will be found to be just the reverse of 

 those on ancient coins, and in all cases prices have considerably 

 advanced. Taking- the sales of the last twelve months or so, we 

 will note the priqes of a few pieces, none of which can be said to be 

 of very great rarity. Pennies of William the Conqueror, when fine, 

 sold from £z to £;i los. each ; a light groat of Henry VI., £1 los. ; 

 another of Edward V., £l 5s. ; a crown of Elizabeth with m.m. 2, 

 £"] 5s. apd ^7 los. ; another of James I., with reverse inscription 

 QV^ DEVS CONIVNXIT NEMO SEPARET, a common type, £] 17s. 

 6d. ; an O.xford crown of Charles I., £11 lis.; Tanner's copy of 

 the sixpence of Cromwell, over ;^5o ; a half-broad of Cromwell, 

 ;£32 15s. ; a half-crown hammered oi Charles II., ^8 8s. ; a proof 

 crown of George II., ^ii 5s. ; a pattern crown of William IV., £p.\ 

 los., etc. Such prices as these a few years ago would have been 

 deemed almost incredible. Even the ordinary pieces, if in any 

 thing like fine condition, of the reigns of the Georges, William IV., 

 and Victoria, many of which are only just out of currency, and 

 some few still current, cannot be purchased excepting at high 

 prices ; and the copper coins and tokens of the seventeenth and 

 eighteenth centuries have risen several hundred per cent in value. 

 A corresponding result is also shown with regard to English 

 medals of all classes. For some years the value of English coins 

 had been rising steadily, but it was the Shepherd sale in 1885 which 

 gave the great impetus, and since that time it would appear as 

 though collectors do not place any limits on their bids if they happen 

 to come across desirable acquisitions. 



How, then, can this great change be accounted for? The 

 answer to this question is a very simple one. The old class of 

 coin-collectors is fast diminishing, and a new one has sprung up in 

 its place. Twenty years ago there were in England a considerable 

 body of collectors of ancient coins, but now they can almost be 

 counted on one's fingers; while, on the other hand, for one collector 

 of English coins there are now ten. This falling-off in the old stock is 

 much to be regretted ; for many a man in advanced life has been 

 induced, by the sight of Greek and Roman coins, to open those 

 books which had remained closed since he left school or college. 

 On these small pieces of metal we find illustrated the myths of the 

 gods and heroes of the Greek world ; we are brought face to face 

 with the portraits of the great generals of ancient times, Alexander 

 the Great, Lysimachus, Julius Csesar, and Pompey, of the long line 

 of the Ptolemies of Egypt, of the kings of Syria, Cappadocia, and 

 Bactria, and of the still longer series of Roman and Byzantine 

 emperors and empresses. The student of paleography, too, will 

 glean much information from the examples of various ancient 

 alphabets, such as the Lycian, Cyprian, Phoenician, Greek, and 

 Latin ; and to the metrologist are laid open the various systems of 

 weights employed by the great nations of the ancient world, and 

 through these the principal lines of trade of the Greeks and 

 Romans. The artist, too, will find on coins the various 

 phases of ancient art clearly defined. They show art in its origin, 

 in its growth towards perfection and in its perfection, in its decline, 

 and in its degradation. These are but a few of the charms offered 

 by the study of ancient numismatics, and it is these which will be 

 lost when coin-collecting is abandoned. 



Fortunately, while the general taste for these objects in England 

 appears to have been on the wane, those who remained constant to 

 the study of ancient numismatics have worked with all the more 

 ardor, and in few departments of learning has more progress been 

 made in the last few years. But the results of these labors, till re- 

 cently, have never been embodied in a compact form, and were 

 only to be found scattered over many volumes of periodicals and 

 journals. The Clarendon Press has, however, taken the matter in 

 hand, and, under the guidance of Mr. B. V. Head, has issued a 

 ' Manual of Greek Coins ' (' Hisforia Niimorum '), which gives in a 

 concise form the history and description of ancient Greek numis- 

 matics {Athen., No. 3098, p. 357). It also deals with their art, 

 metrology, types, etc. The work commences with the coinages of 



Europe, beginning with that of Spain, and, journeying eastwards to 

 Greece proper, crosses over into Asia, and ends with the series of 

 Africa. This is the order adopted by Eckhel over a century ago, 

 and, being generally accepted by numismatists, has been followed 

 by Mr. Head. The work does not claim to be complete, for it was 

 impossible to aim at completeness when the author was so limited 

 in space ; but nevertheless the student of Greek numismatics will 

 find in it all that he needs at first, and when he has mastered it, if 

 inclined, he can easily turn to the more lengthy dissertations, a list 

 of which is given by Mr. Head in his introduction. The work is of 

 so recent a date that the extent of its influence on the numismatic 

 world cannot at present be gauged ; but that it will bear good 

 fruit we do not for a moment doubt, and it may even increase the 

 list of those collectors whose falling-off we are now regretting. 



We may add that what has been done by Mr. Head for Greek 

 numismatics had recently been done by several other well-known 

 numismatists for English coins and medals ; and this may, perhaps, 

 in some degree account for their popularity at the present time. 

 Two new editions of Hawkins's work on the silver coinage have 

 been issued, Mr. Kenyon has written on the gold coins, Mr. Mon- 

 tagu has described the copper coinage, and Hawkins's long- 

 promised work on English coins has at last appeared. 



HEALTH MATTERS. 



Grinder's Consumption. 



Dr. Canedy of Shelburne Falls, Mass., recently read a paper 

 before the Franklin District Medical Society on grinder's consump- 

 tion, being the results of his observations on the grinders employed 

 by a cutlery company at that place, numbering, on an average, 

 forty men and boys for the past twenty-five years. During the ten 

 years just ended, twenty-three grinders have died with chronic dis- 

 ease of the air-passages, and three are now confined to the house 

 with similar affections ; and five in whom the disease has made 

 considerable progress are still at work in the cutlery. Of all the 

 occupations in which the workers are compelled to inhale an at- 

 mosphere loaded with irritating dust, as coal-mining and iron and 

 metal polishing, none seems more certain or fatal in its effects than 

 grinding. Investigations made at Sheffield, Eng., fix the average 

 period which grinders can work at thirteen years. The first 

 symptom which manifests itself is cough, soon followed by short- 

 ness of breath upon exertion, as walking up hill. During all this 

 time an inflammatory process is going on in the lung, which re- 

 sults in a gangrenous or purulent condition ; the patient having fever, 

 and often a terrible cough. During this attack the patient is con- 

 fined to bed from ten to twenty weeks. After six weeks an ab- 

 scess forms in the lung, and, when the pus is expectorated, im- 

 provement begins. The progress of some cases is exceedingly 

 slow ; some of the patients living ten years or more, after being 

 compelled to leave the shop by their cough, most of the time in 

 chronic invalidism, and dying at last from the exhaustion dependent 

 upon pulmonary disease. 



In spite of all treatment, the inevitable tendency of the disease 

 seems to be toward a fatal termination, and Dr. Canedy states 

 that he has never seen any recoveries. The picture which is given 

 us in this paper is a most distressing one ; and it would seem that 

 some attention should be paid to the subject by those in power. 

 The improvements which have been made in unhealthy trades by 

 the substitution of sanitary for unsanitary conditions have been so 

 marked that some of them can certainly be applied to the reduction 

 of the great suffering and mortality among the cutlery grinders. The 

 State Boartl of Health can here doubtless find an opportunity to do 

 more good work in a field in which it has so long and so well 

 labored. 



The Children of New York. — At a meeting of the New 

 York County Medical Association, Dr. Charles A. Leale presented 

 a paper on the prevention of chronic disease among the children of 

 New York City. The facts which formed the basis of this paper 

 were obtained by Dr. Leale and his associate physicians, from their 

 gratuitous visits to the tenement-houses of this city during the 

 summer of 1886. Their work extended over a period of six weeks, 

 during which time they visited 3,659 families, representing 7,146 

 adults and 10,086 children. Of these, 217 adults and 3,376 children 



