HISTORY OF SANTUBONG OF SARAWAK 11 
CHINESE COINS. 
We have quite a collection of cash from the area in ques- 
tion. The commonest coin found is a Thai Ping cent piece 
cast in the period A. D. 976-984. Besides this, there are cash 
belonging to the periods A. D. 618-905, A. D. 998-1004, 
Peet sg. t040, A.D. 1064-1068, A. D. 1078, A. D. 1101, 
Papeete to, A. LD. 1736-1796, A. D: 1736-1791, A. D. 
imos—le2l A. D. 1821-1851. 
In considering this list of such varied dates it should be 
remembered that similar coins of all ages are still in currency 
amongst Chinese although the coins of a reigning Emperor or 
dynasty would predominate in China. Making due allowance 
for this, it would still seem a possibility that the coins belonged 
to at least two distinct colonies of Chinamen living in Santu- 
bong at different periods, vz., an early colony financed by 
Thai Ping coins with others up to the year A. D. 1101, and 
a much more recent colony who used mainly eighteenth 
century coins. 
TRON SLAG. 
The visitor to Santubong cannot fail to remark on the 
large quantities of black iron slag found on the surface of the 
ground over a large area, and history has nothing whatever to 
relate of an iron manufacture here. It exists in large masses 
as well as in small bits, and apparently is intermixed with the 
surface soil fairly uniformly. This iron slag is rich in iron as 
if it were the product of unskilled workers. There are no 
remains of furnaces nor of ironware which was presumably 
made here: the latter fact is what might have been anticipated 
as in this country earth-buried iron disappears rapidly. 
In our account of the crucibles we mentioned that there 
have been found a solitary crucible specimen containing slag 
scoria fused to its sides: this may suggest for the slag an origin 
from the crucibles but it seems scarcely probable when we 
consider the large size of the masses of slag which rather 
points to the use of small primitive furnaces. Strange to say 
there is now no iron ore to be obtained on the island: the 
R. A. Soc., No. 51,168. 
