Progress of Invention. 313 



believed that, whoever has it in his possession, will soon see the pro- 

 priety of returning it to its right place in the Shrewsbury Museum. 

 We would call attention to a very ingenious and probably cor- 

 rect suggestion made by Mr. Roach Smith, in his Notes in the last 

 number of the " Gentleman's Magazine." Every one at all ac- 

 quainted with the Roman antiquities of our island, knows how 

 frequently large hoards op Roman coins are found buried in the 

 ground. The Anglo-Saxons had remarked this circumstance, but 

 they imagined that the Romans, when they left the island alto- 

 gether, nourished the hope of coming back again, and that they 

 buried their treasures, in the idea they would thus be preserved 

 till their return. It is a remarkable circumstance, that nearly all 

 these hoards contain almost the same proportions of the coins of the 

 different emperors ; that the most numerous are those of Tetricus, 

 father and son, and that the least numerous are those of Aurelian, 

 with whom they almost all conclude. Mr. Roach Smith compares 

 two hoards recently discovered, one at Netly in Hampshire, the 

 other in Yorkshire, and therefore in widely distant parts of the 

 island. In the former, consisting in all of 1821 coins, there were 

 749 of Tetricus the father, 255 of Tetricus the son, and one of 

 Aurelian ; in the latter, out of a total of 3095 coins, there were 1097 

 of Tetricus the father, 434 of Tetricus the son, and four of Aurelian. 

 Mr. Roach Smith conjectures, and we are quite of his opinion, that 

 when, at that eventful period in" the history of the Roman empire 

 in the west, the legions in Britain and Gaul, who had supported 

 the usurpation of Tetricus, were called into the latter province to 

 oppose the advance of Aurelian, the soldiers of the legions in 

 Britain, before their departure, buried these hoards, and that the 

 owners never returned to reclaim them, being slaughtered probably 

 in the great battle which restored the western provinces to the 

 empire of Rome. A comparison of these hoards is further inte- 

 resting to us, as it shows us the proportions of the coinage of the 

 different emperors in circulation at the close of the third century. 



T. W. 



PROGRESS OE INVENTION. 



Artificial Meerschaum, etc. — Chemistry has discovered a new 

 and interesting use for potatoes and other vegetables, illustrations of 

 which are now to be seen at the Paris International Exhibition. If 

 potatoes are peeled, macerated for about thirty-six hours in water, 

 to which eight per cent, sulphuric acid has been added, well washed 

 with water, dried in blotting-paper, and then in hot sand for several 

 days, on plates of chalk or plaster of paris, which are changed daily, 

 being compressed at the same time, an excellent imitation of meer- 

 chaum, answering well for the carver, or any purpose not requiring 

 a high temperature, will be obtained. Greater hardness, whiteness, 

 and elasticity will be produced if water containing three per cent, of 



