immediately to the east of us, Ava and China, nearly destitute of fabricated money of their own; into the former of which our silver and copper currency is but now by degrees beginning to penetrate, while the latter, along the coast, is supplied with dollars from America; and, within perhaps a century or so,' in its north-western provinces, with coin struck by the neighbouring frontier states of Nepál, Láhor, etc., for their use. But this is a digression involving questions of deep research, foreign to my present object, and which I am by no means prepared to discuss.

[The body of this article, together with the four illustrative engravings, has been omitted in the present reprint, as it offers, confessedly, but little of novelty or value. I have introduced the above extract chiefly as a record of the commencement of James Prinsep's labours as a numismatic author.

I desire to take this early opportunity of claiming a lenient criticism for any imperfection that may be detected in the style or arrangement of James Prinsep's original Essays.

Sir Wm. Jones, on the first inauguration of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, in 1784, in shadowing forth the characteristics that were likely to mark the contributions of AngloIndian authors, expressed himself as follows:

"If this first publication of the Asiatic Society should not answer those expectations which may have been hastily formed by the learned in Europe, they will be candid enough to consider the disadvantages which must naturally have attended its institution and retarded its progress. A mere man of letters, retired from the world, and allotting his whole time to philosophical or literary pursuits, is a character unknown among Europeans in India, where every individual is a man of business in the civil or military state, and constantly occupied either in the affairs of government, in the administration of justice, in some department of revenue or commerce, or in one of the liberal professions,-very few hours, therefore, in the day or night

The Chinese provinces north of the Himalaya, Tibet, etc., were supplied with coin struck in the valley of Nepál.-Dr. Bramley's Notes on Nepál Coinage.

can be reserved for any study that has no immediate connection with business, even by those who are most habituated to mental application."

So much in extenuation of possible defects or shortcomings; but it is satisfactory to be able to quote, seventy years after the date of Sir Wm. Jones's address, the opinion entertained by our continental neighbours of the value of such writings, as embodied in the last report to the Société Asiatique of Paris. The words made use of are :—

"La Société Asiatique de Calcutta a publié le volume xxiii. (1854) de son 'Journal,' qui est, comme toujours, rempli des matériaux les plus intéressants, recueillis dans toutes les parties de l'Inde et communiqués en général avec une absence de prétensions littéraires, qui est naturelle à des hommes occupés de graves devoirs d'un autre genre et trouvant à peine le temps de consigner par écrit leurs découvertes, de sorte qu'ils ne disent que ce qui est neuf et réellement curieux et le disent avec une simplicité qui en augmente le prix pour nous, en Europe, qui vivons au milieu des vanités littéraires les plus fatigantes."- Rapport annuel fait à la Société Asiatique, par M. Jules Mohl, 20th June, 1855.-E. T.]

II. ON THE GREEK COINS IN THE CABINET OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY.

[JANUARY, 1833.]

HAVING described the Roman coins in the Cabinet of the Asiatic Society, I propose to follow up the subject, by extending my examination of the Society's Cabinet, through their series of Greek and Persian coins (leaving the Indian coins for a future occasion); and I believe that although the specimens of the first two are far from being numerous in our collection, still the drawings of them will be found sufficient to furnish tolerable guides for the assistance of the student in discriminating the coins of these countries at different periods of their history.

I cannot say how many, out of the whole, have been found in India itself; many, certainly, appear to have been brought from Persia. Both Grecian and Persian coins, however, are met with frequently in India, and it is very easy to know them when once their forms have been presented to the eye. Several were brought from Persia by Col. Wilson, who kindly permitted me to take drawings of them; Lieut. Conolly obtained a few in his overland journey to India; and Lieut. Burnes has favored me with one or two specimens of a number of

coins collected by him in Ancient Bactria, a country but recently opened to the investigation of the antiquarian.

It is from this unexplored part of Asia that we may confidently expect a multitude of Grecian antiquities gradually to be developed. Travellers of all nations are already flocking thither to trace the steps and discover the monuments of Alexander's Indian conquests. The most successful in this interesting line of research, partly from the advantage of his rank in the Mahárájá Ranjít Sing's service, has been General Ventura, who, imitating Belzoni at the Pyramids of Egypt, instead of conjecturing and speculating upon the origin of the celebrated Tope or mound of Manikyála in the Panjáb, set boldly to work in 1830 to pierce into its solid mass by digging. He was rewarded by the discovery of numerous coins and other relics, which had lain untouched for perhaps twenty centuries.' A Russian antiquary, I understand, had previously amassed a vast collection of Greek coins in the same country. But it is by no means in the Panjab alone that we are to look for antiquarian riches: the North-western provinces of India offer as large a field of enquiry; and if the coins of Kanouj and Oudh are less interesting, from the nature of the characters in which their legends are graven being wholly unknown, they should, nevertheless, be regarded as more curious because they speak this unknown language, and remain the only records of kingdoms and revolutions whose existence is but faintly discernible on the page of history.

1 An account of General Ventura's operations was communicated to Colonel James Young, and by him printed in the newspapers of the day: it is reprinted in the seventeenth volume of the Asiatic Rescarches,' page 600.