Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/367

Rh lighter, reddish colour, and coarser manufacture; and rare instances have occurred of fragments of that peculiarly fine red decorated ware termed Samian being exhumed. Of the coarse unbaked early British pottery, very few fragments have been observed. The ware is invariably found in dispersed fragments of vessels of various descriptions, some shallow pateræ, others large wide-mouthed jars. No authenticated instance of an entire vessel having been discovered can be adduced; Hutchins indeed mentions the "Coal Money" as found in kistvaens and urns, but he speaks solely upon hear- say, and repeated and patient personal observation and re- search in the neighbourhood, extending over some years, and much oral communication with the peasantry of that part, have failed to ascertain any such instance. The "Coal Money" is frequently found mixed with small flat pieces of stone having each but a few inches of surface.

Fragments of the Kimmeridge shale, the "raw material" of which the articles are formed, are very frequently discovered mixed with the "Coal Money," or under the same circumstances. Some of these shew the marks of cutting tools, as if prepared for the lathe, whilst the shale, being fresh from the quarry, was comparatively soft. Others exhibit lines, angles, circles, and other figures, drawn with mathematical accuracy, the central point, in which one leg of the compasses was inserted, being observable in some of the circles. Pieces of rings of the same material, apparently from two to three inches in diameter, and about $1⁄4$ of an inch thick, have likewise been turned up; and in one instance a perfect ring was dug up in the formation of a drain, the inner diameter of which was 1$1⁄4$ inch, and the thickness of the ring $3⁄8$ of an inch, making a total diameter of two inches. One piece of the shale has been rudely cut by some very sharp instrument into an irregular form with a large perforation, as if worn about the person. Small fragments of charcoal are also frequently found mixed with the "Coal Money."

As to the origin of these articles, and the purposes for which they were constructed and to which they were applied, the hypotheses hitherto advanced have been equally varied and unsatisfactory, and those antiquaries under whose notice they have fallen, have been, to use the language of Sir R. C. Hoare, "in doubt and uncertainty respecting the use to which these articles were originally appropriated." The notion that they