372 Remarks on some lately -discovered Roman Gold Coins. [No. 5. 



who purchased them for the purpose of having them melted down for 

 trinkets and ornaments — and many, it is to he regretted, have been 

 irretrievably lost in this way. The secrecy at first so carefully main- 

 tained by the natives in respect to the spot whence they brought them 

 rose in proportion to the eagerness with which the coins were bought 

 up, and for a long time all endeavours proved fruitless in ascertaining 

 the precise locality wherein they were found. It now appears that 

 they were accidentally discovered in the search for gold dust by the 

 gradual clearing away of the soil on the slope of % a small hill in the 

 neighbourhood of Kottayem, a village about ten miles to the east- 

 ward of Cannanore. A brass vessel was also found in which many of 

 the coins were deposited. For a length of time the numbers appear 

 to have been very great, and it has been stated that no less than five 

 cooly loads of gold coins were dug out of the same spot. Neither 

 will this startling assertion be so incredible after all, when we have it 

 on record that upwards of five hundred coins were discovered in the 

 Coimbatore district in 1842 ; a short but interesting account of which 

 is given in the volume of the Madras Journal of Science and Litera- 

 ture, for 1844. Other discoveries have also been made at various inter- 

 vals in the Deccan, the S. Mahratta country, Cuddapah, Nellore, 

 Madura, and in various places in S. India. But in no instance has 

 such a large quantity of coins almost exclusively gold been hitherto 

 discovered, and all at the same time in such perfect preservation. It 

 is impossible to make any correct calculation as to the numbers which 

 have actually been found, but it might be mentioned that about eighty 

 or ninety have come into the possession of His Highness the Rajah 

 of Travancore — and still a greater quantity has been collected and 

 preserved by General Cullen, Resident in Travancore, while even after 

 the lapse of more than a year from their first discovery they are still 

 procurable from the natives in the neighbourhood of Tellicherry and 

 Calicut. The most numerous examples which occur are those of the 

 reign of Tiberius, and next to that Emperor, those of Nero. It is not 

 a little remarkable that both among these Aurei as well as among the 

 Denarii alluded to as discovered at Coimbatore, 1842, the examples of 

 coins of the Emperor Tiberius should in both instances have been 

 more frequent than any other, although this may in some manner 

 be accounted for when we consider that the reign of Tiberius extended 



