854 
APOTHECARIES ACT, DUBLIN. 
at Chiddinglv, near Hailsham, and at Seddlescombe, near Battle, prove that the mines 
were very largely worked during the Homan occupation. There appears also to be pre¬ 
sumptive evidence that they were worked before the landing of Caesar. In 1862,1 found 
on the surface of a cinder heap, to the north of Bathurst Wood, near Battle, fragments 
of rude unturned pottery, identical in coarseness of texture, and in the presence of little 
fragments of quartz, with that usually termed Keltic. There were also rude flint flakes, 
which must have been brought there by the hand of man, because the material is foieign 
to the area. I met with flakes also in association with the scoriae at Seddlescombe. It 
is indeed, undoubtedly true that rough pottery, unturned in the lathe, and flint flakes, 
were used in Britain during the Roman occupation. Both occur along with Samian ware, 
bronze fibulae, and the like, round the Roman castrum at Hardham, near Pulborough, 
which I explored in 1863. Both most probably were used by the peasantry long after 
the Roman conquest; but, nevertheless, when they are found apart from any trace of 
Roman art, there is, to say the least, a possibility of their belonging to a far more ancient 
period. The possibility in this particular case widens and deepens into a probability 
when we read in Caesar’s ‘Commentaries’ (book v. chap. 12), that the dwellers in the 
maritime part of Britain “Utuntur aut sereo aut taleis ferreis ad certum pondus exami- 
natis pro numino. Nascitur ibi ... in maritimis ferrum ; sed ejus exigua est copia. 
In the fourteenth chapter he designates Cantium (Kent) as being wholly “ maritima 
reo-ioand in the thirteenth he defines Cantium as being one of the angles of triangu¬ 
lar Britannia, including most probably not only Kent, but also a considerable portion of 
eastern Sussex. Again in the twelfth chapter, he says expressly that the Maritima pars 
was inhabited by Belgic colonists, who crossed over from the country between the Seine 
and Marne and the Rhine; that is to say, from the nearest points of the Continent. All 
these passages taken collectively would imply that the maritime part in which the iron 
occurred was that nearest the Continent, or Cantium, i. e., Kent and Sussex. Now, the 
recently published geological maps of those two counties show that the iron-bearing 
strata are found only in the extreme south of the pre^nt county of Kent, and in the 
Wealden portion of Sussex ; and therefore such a remark could only apply to that area. 
In full, to sum up the whole case, we find on the one hand, near Battle, scoriae which 
may be ascribed to a date anterior to the landing of the Romans; on the other, we find 
Caesar mentioning the fact of the occurrence of iron in that very district; and therefore 
we may fairly infer that some at least of the mine-pits in that neighbourhood date back 
from a time anterior to the first Roman landing. The nearest mine-pits to the layer of 
scoriae are those of Seddlescombe and Brede, those of the former place having been 
worked by the Romans. , , 
It would indeed have been a most exceptional case had the conquerors of Britain, who 
worked the tin and copper of Cornwall, the lead and zinc of Somerset, and extracted gold 
out of the solid quartz rock of Wales, neglected to carry on the works begun before their 
landing. . . . , , 
Direct proof that mining was carried on in the Weald some nineteen hundred years 
a<m we cannot get, but the evidence tending towards that conclusion seems to be worthy 
of notice. The faintest glimmer of light thrown upon those very obscure times should 
be treasured up .—Transactions of the International Congress of Prehistoric Archeology , 
Third Season. 
AN ACT FOR THE MORE EFFECTUALLY PRESERVING THE 
HEALTH OF HIS MAJESTY’S SUBJECTS, FOR ERECTING AN 
APOTHECARY’S HALL IN THE CITY OF DUBLIN, AND RE¬ 
GULATING THE PROFESSION OF AN APOTHECARY THROUGH¬ 
OUT THE KINGDOM OF IRELAND. 
31 Geokge III. c. 34. 
Whereas not only many but great inconveniencies have arisen from the 
want of an hall amply supplied with medicines of the purest quality, pre¬ 
pared under the inspection of persons well skilled in the art and mystery of 
such preparations, but also frequent frauds and abuses have been imposed and 
practised on many of his Majesty’s subjects within the city of Dublin, and 
