J. G. Bartholomew

“ We possess coins of his son Demetrius, of the square Indian form with an Indian legend on the reverse, showing a compromise between the Greek and Indian methods of coinage. Henceforth the coins of his successors, many of whom are otherwise unknown to history, are bilingual (Plate V. 2, hemidrachm of Apollodotos I., c. 150 B.C.) . Towards the end of the second century B.C. the Scythians invaded Bactria and India; their coins are imitated from those of their Greek predecessors, but are much inferior as works of art (Plate V. 4, silver coin of Azes I., c. 90 B.C.) . ”

“ Five years after the first voyage of Columbus, John Cabot, sailing from Bristol, discovered Labrador and Newfoundland, and within forty years Verazzano and Cartier opened up the St. Lawrence River as far as Montreal for French settlement; before the end of the century Frobisher had explored Hudson Bay and Gilbert made the first attempt at colonising Newfoundland and Virginia; in 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers sailed the Mayflower into Cape Cod Bay, where five years later the colony of Massachusetts was planted. ”

“ Alexander III., the Great.—When the Persian empire fell before Alexander the Great his coins became current throughout Asia, from the Mediterranean to the Indus, and profoundly influenced all later coinages. His gold coins (the stater, with its multiple the distater and its sub-divisions) have on the obverse a head of Athena, and on the reverse a winged Victory with the king's name; the silver (drachm, with multiples and subdivisions) has on the obverse a head of the young Herakles in lion-skin, and reverse, Zeus seated on throne holding eagle and sceptre (Plate I. 7) . ”

“ Acadia never had any boundaries except the sea, but it was more or less identical with Nova Scotia. These quarrels culminated in the Seven Years' War, when after her victories at Louisburg, Quebec, Montreal, etc., England became possessed of Canada and the country between Mississippi and the Alleghanies by the Treaty of Paris in 1763. In the first half of the nineteenth century tokens played the part of copper money in British North America; on Plate II., Fig. 15, is a token of Prince Edward Island, which was originally part of Cape Breton and took its name in 1800 from the Duke of Kent ”

“ J. Allan (of the Coins and Medal Department, British Museum) has traced the record from Lydia, six centuries and more B.C., to our own time. His notes on the Phoenician coins—"tetradrachms of Tyre with a dolphin or the god Melkart riding on a sea-horse," or an owl with a crook and a flail (Egyptian royal symbols) ; or the double shekels of Sidon with a galley, sails, or oars, before a walled city on one side, and a king of Persia on the other—show how much of history a set of coins, apparently so secretive, may hide in their silver and gold impressions. ”

“ Originally annexed to Spain by Pinzon, it was accidentally discovered a second time in 1500 by the Portuguese admiral Cabral, who, in an attempt to follow Vasco da Gama's course by the Cape of Good Hope to India, so greatly exaggerated the circuit which was necessary to avoid contrary winds and currents that he struck the coast of Brazil; it was then found that it lay within Portuguese territory by the agreement of 1494, and a few years later Vespucci was sent by Portugal to colonise it. ”

“ Huns.—The Gupta empire finally fell before the inroads of barbarous Huns, who swept down through Persia on India about the same time that their kinsmen under Attila were ravaging Europe. They have left numerous coins imitated from Sassanian or Indian types (Plate V. 12, silver coin of Toramana, c. 514-544 A.D., with Sassanian types) . From the Hun imitations of Sassanian coins are descended certain coins of very rude fabric known to the natives as "asses' head" money, which circulated very largely in North India from the sixth to the eighth century (Plate V. 11) . ”

“ In 1871 were formed the United States of Venezuela by which was struck the gold piece of 1886 on Plate VIII., Fig. 50, with the commemorative portrait of Bolivar. Plate VIII., Fig. 52, is a silver coin of Ecuador struck in 1884 commemorating by the portrait and the coin denomination (Half Sucre) the great general who fought under Bolivar for the independence of these republics; after his victory at Ayacucho in 1824 he became in the following year the first president of the new republic of Bolivia. Fig. 53 is a gold Five Peso piece of Chili of 1862, and Fig. 54 a 20 Soles piece of Peru of 1863. ”

“ Of the Department of Coins, British Museum
The coins of Asia from the earliest times may be conveniently reviewed in the following geographical and chronological sections: I. Ancient coins of Western and Central Asia (to the rise of Islam, excluding the majority of Greek and Roman coins which have no claim to be Asiatic) ; II. Mohammadan coins of Western and Central Asia; III. Coins of India (Hindu and Mohammadan) ; IV. Coins of the Far East; V. Coins struck by European nations for their Asiatic possessions. ”

“ The types were the same on each coin, viz., on the obverse, the Persian King in a half-kneeling position holding a bow in his left hand and a spear in his right, while the reverse still had no type but only a rough incuse caused in striking the coins (Plate I. 3, daric) . These two coins remained the official coinage of the Persian empire till its fall. The conquered Greek cities were not allowed to strike gold, but the issue of silver and copper by them was not interfered with; in addition certain Persian satraps were allowed to issue silver coins bearing their own names. ”

“ Fig. 44 is a gold piece of 4000 Reis with portrait of Pedro I. as emperor in 1824 and Fig. 45 a gold 10,000 Reis piece (the Reis having greatly depreciated by this time) struck in 1889, the first year of the Brazilian Republic.
French colonisation is seen in the island of Haiti, in which, [112] though discovered by Columbus, a French colony settled in 1690, and by the treaty of Ryswick in 1697 the part of the island known as San Domingo was ceded to France. ”

“ All this time these countermarked Spanish pieces formed almost the only currency; on Plate I. are shown such pieces made current for Tortola (Fig. 2) , St. Lucia (Fig. 3) , Dominique (Fig. 4) , and Guadeloupe (Figs. 5 and 6) . The two last pieces of Guadeloupe are especially interesting as showing how a fraction was cut out of a "Piece of Eight" (i.e., 8 reals) , and the remainder of the original coin also put into circulation; it was originally struck by Ferdinand VII. at the Mexican mint in the year 1811. ”

“ Sultans of Delhi.—When Mohammad bin Sam (1193-1205 A.D.) defeated the allied Hindu forces on the plain of Thaneswar in 1193 he became master of India and founded the dynasty known as the Sultans of Delhi, which survived till the Moghul conquest. In addition to striking coins of the usual Mohammadan type he copied the coins of his Hindu predecessors (e.g. Plate VI. 10, copper, cf. 2 and 3; VI. 11, gold, cf. 4) . The coins of his successors are the tanka (about 175 grains) in gold and in silver, in addition to smaller coins of copper and billon. ”

“ Independence was declared in 1813, but Spanish control restored in 1820, and the country finally won its independence in the following year under Augustin Iturbide, who was later declared emperor. An Eight Real piece with a fine portrait of Augustin as Emperor of Mexico is shown on Plate VI., Fig. 42. In 1823 a federal republic was formed which received recognition from Spain ten years later.
Brazil is interesting as the seat of Portuguese colonisation in America. ”

“ The earliest Lydian coins are believed to have been issued in the time of Gyges, king of Lydia (687-652 B.C.) . These are rude oval pieces 100 of electrum, a natural mixture of gold and silver found locally, and are stamped on one side only (Plate I. 1) . The uncertain value of this metal was found an embarrassment to commerce, and Croesus (561-546 B.C.) , under whose rule Lydia became a great and wealthy power, introduced a coinage of pure gold and of pure silver, ten staters of silver being equal to one of gold (Plate I. 2, gold stater) . ”

“ As for the local associations that have become familiar in American literature, you have a chart of the Concord neighbourhood showing Walden Pond, Forest Lake, Lexington, and Punkatasset Hill, associated with the name and fame of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and H. D. Thoreau. Fenimore Cooper recalls the old Indian Territory as it was in the wild prime of the Red Men ”

“ From the time of Albuquerque the Portuguese have issued coins here, always with European types. Plate X. 11 is a pardao or half-rupee of Maria struck at Goa in 1808, and is typical of the coinage for nearly three centuries previous. Since 1881 the coins for Goa, which is now all that is left of the Portuguese possessions in the East, have been struck at the Bombay mint, and are uniform with those of British India (Plate X. 12, quarter-rupee, 1885) . ”

“ Vespucci accompanied Ojeda in expedition to, 1499 (there is uncertainty as to V.'s earlier voyage) ; further explorations of the east coast in 1498-9 by the Cabots; 1500-1 by the Cortereals; 1502 and 1504 by Columbus; 1524 by Verazzani; in 1500 Yañez Pinzon and Cabral discovered Brazil shortly after one another; 1513, Balboa crossed the isthmus of Panama and sighted the Pacific; other explorers of 16th-17th centuries: Cortés, Pizarro, Almagro, De Soto, Magalhaes, Cartier, Champlain, La [140] Salle, Joliet, and Marquette; in the 18th the American travellers Lewis and Clarke, and Pike. ”