28 On the Greek Coins of the [Jan. 
Both Grecian and Persian coins however are met with frequently in 
India, and it is very easy to know them when once their forms have been 
presented to the eye. Several were brought by Col. Wilson from Per- 
sia, who kindly permitted me to take drawings of them; Lieut. Conolly 
obtained a few in his overland journey to India: and Lieut. Burnes has | 
favored me with one or two specimens of a number of coins collect- 
ed by him in Ancient Bactria, a country but recently opened to the in- 
vestigation of the antiquarian. 
It is from this unexplored part of Asia that we may confidently ex- 
pect a multitude of Grecian antiquities gradually to be developed. Tra- 
vellers of all nations are already flocking thither to trace the steps 
and discover the monuments of Alexander’s Indian conquests. The 
most successful in this interesting line of research, partly from the ad- 
vantage of his rank in Maha-raja Ranjit Singh’s service, has been Ge- 
neral Ventura, who, imitating Belzoni at the Pyramids of Egypt, instead 
of conjecturing and speculating upon the origin of the celebrated Tope 
or mound of Manikyala in the Punjab, set boldly to work in 1830 to 
pierce into its solid mass by digging. | He was rewarded by the disco- 
very of numerous coins and other relics which had lain untouched for 
perhaps twenty centuries*. A Russian antiquary I understand had pre- 
viously amassed a vast collection of Greek coins in the same country. 
But it is by no means in the Punjab alone that we are to look for an- 
tiquarian riches: the north-western provinces of India offer as large 
a field of enquiry—and if the coins of Kanouj and Oudh are less inter- 
esting from the nature of the characters in which their legends are 
graven being wholly unknown, they should nevertheless be regarded as 
more curious because they speak this unknown language and remain 
the only records of kingdoms and revolutions whose existence is but 
faintly discernible on the page of history. 
It is principally to instigate those who have opportunities of forming 
collections in the upper provinces, that I have drawn up these notes, 
and I cannot adduce a more powerful motive for studying and search- 
ing, than the example and success of that indefatigable investigator of 
history and antiquity,“Major Tod, who thus describes his method of 
forming a collection in the Ist vol. of the Trans. Roy. As. Soc. 
“For the last twelve years of my residence in India, (amongst 
Mahrattas and Rajputs,) the collecting of coins as an auxiliary to histo- 
* An account of General Ventura’s operations was communicated to Col. James 
Young and by him printed in the newspapers of the day : it is reprinted in the se- 
venteenth volume of the Researches, page 600. 
