tliat the three deposits are contemporaneous or nearly so, and from 
his researches at Upware he is convinced that the age to wliich 
they must be referred is that of the Lower Greensand, the Neoco- 
mian of D’Orbigny. 
Noy. 5. —The Rev. J. Keneice: laid on the table a series of the 
Roman As and its subdivisions, and observed that the order in 
which the different metals came into use for coinage, seems to have 
depended upon the facility of obtaining them in different countries. 
The sands of the Lydian Pactolus furnished gold, and the oldest coin¬ 
age was that of the Lydian Kings. Attica had abundant mines of 
silver, and till the Macedonian times the Athenians coined only 
silver. Italy abounded in copper (Od., lib. 1. 84, Strabo, lib. 6. 
p. 393), and the Romans for several centimes used only an alloy of 
copper for their money. Its use in rude masses preceded its coin¬ 
age, and long after the introduction of coin, payment in certain legal 
forms was made in css rude, uncoined brass. It was the custom 
to throw pieces of uncoined brass into lakes and springs, as offer¬ 
ings to their deities, and in draining some of them, large quantities 
of these have been found. The Latin language bears many 
traces of the exclusive use of copper money. A treasury was 
csrarium; to calculate a price, csstimare; a debt, ms alienum. The 
old Romans packed (stipdbant) their money in a cell, whence the 
name sti]^s for a small coin. 
The As is commonly spoken of as if it were exclusively a Roman 
coin, but this was not the case; it was in use in Latium and Central 
Italy generally. Many specimens undoubtedly genuine have been 
cast and not stamped. Originally it was a pound of 12oz. weight, but 
it underwent constant reductions; its subdivisions, however, always 
had a reference to a unit of 12oz., the triens having four balls as 
being the ^ of 12; the qiiadrans, three; the sextans, two; the uncia, 
one. The right of coining brass money, as well as gold and silver, 
belonged to the Triumviri Monetarii, but it is rare to find their 
names on the brass coins. One of those now added to the Society’s 
collection, however, has the letters AP, probably denoting a mem¬ 
ber of the Gens Appuleia. In the division of prerogatives which 
Augustus made between himself and the Senate, he kept the coin¬ 
age of gold and silver and allotted the brass to them, agreeably to 
his policy of giving them a semblance of power in the state and 
keeping the substance to himself. Hence the imperial brass money 
has S. C. (Senatus Oonsulto). 
* Mommsen Romisches Miinzwesen, p. 170, 
