1<867.] The Initial Coinage of Bengal. 11 



early issues will be seen to follow closely upon the proper amount 

 in weight contemplated in the Dehli prototypes ; but one of the curious 

 results tbe Kooch Behar collective find determines is, that though the 

 first kings on the list clearly put forth money of full measure, their 

 pieces were, in most cases, subjected to a well understood Indian 

 process of boring-out, or reduction to the exact weight to which we 

 must suppose subsequent kings lowered the legal standard of their 

 money, so that, although some of the silver pieces of Kai Kaiis and 

 Firtiz have escaped the debaser's eye, and preserve the completeness of 

 their original issue denomination, the great majority of the older 

 coins have been brought down to the subsequent local standard of 

 166 grains, at which figure, in troy grains, the bulk of the hoard 

 ranges ; or, in more marked terms, 166 grains is the precise weight of 

 the majority of the very latest and best preserved specimens, which 

 must have been consigned to their recent place of concealment when 

 very fresh from mints but little removed from the residence of the 

 accumulator of the treasure, and be held to represent coin which 

 could scarcely have changed hands. 



The intrinsic value of the money of these sovereigns follows next in 

 the order of the enquiry. This department of fiscal administration 

 might naturally have been expected to have been subject to but limited 

 check or control, when regulated by the uncertain processes of 

 Oriental metallurgy ; but, in practice, it will be seen that some of the 

 native Mint-masters were able to secure a very high standard of 

 purity, and, what is more remarkable, to maintain a singularly uniform 

 scale in the rate of alloy. In the case of the imperial coins subjected 

 to assay in Calcutta, specimens spreading over, and in so far, represen- 

 ting a sequent eighty years of the issues of the northern metropolis, 

 vary only to the extent of six grains in the thousand, or 0.6 per cent. 

 As the Dehli coinage proves superior, in point of weight, to the sou- 

 thern standard, so also does it retain a higher degree of purity ; the 

 990 and 996 of silver to the test total of 1,000 grains, sinks, in the earliest 

 examples of the Bengal mintages, to 989, from which figures it expe- 

 riences a temporary rise, in possibly exceptional cases, under Bahadur 

 Shah, who may be supposed to have brought down, with his reinstitu- 

 ted honours and the coined treasure so lavishly bestowed upon him by 

 Muhammad bin Tughlak, on his restoration to the government of 



