Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/468

334 instructive relics of human art that occur in the mineral kingdom. In the conglomerates accumulated in the beds of streams, lakes, and rivers, and in the masses of ferruginous sandstone dredged up from the sea, coins are not unfrequently enclosed. From the blocks of regenerated granitic stone formed around the sunk treasures of the Thetis, previously mentioned, many thousand dollars were extracted.

The following instance of the preservation of coins in a fluviatile conglomerate, the date of which can be precisely determined, is one of the most interesting examples of this kind with which I am acquainted. In the year 1831, some workmen employed in deepening the river Dove, where it winds round the base of the rock on which stand the mouldering ruins of the once regal castle of Tutbury, and forms the boundary-line that separates Staffordshire from Derbyshire, they observed, among the loose gravel spread over the bed of the stream, many small silver coins; and continuing their labours, discovered, at the depth of ten feet, large masses of a very hard ferruginous conglomerate, which, on being broken, were found to be studded with hundreds of similar pieces of money. On the discovery becoming known in the neighbourhood, scores of peasants hastened to the river, and at one time not less than three hundred persons were engaged in searching for the treasures. But those who were successful had great difficulty in detaching the coins from the stone in which they were impacted; for the money having lain for upwards of five centuries in the bed of the

river, the water had gradually deposited successive layers of sand and gravel, till the heterogeneous mass was converted into a compact rock, of which the coins constituted an integral part.

The coins collected amounted to many thousands. They comprised sterlings of the Empire, Brabant, Lorraine, and Hainault; and the Scotch money of Alexander III., John Baliol, and Robert Bruce; and a complete English series of Edward I.