the Romans a slight infusion of either Roman or Legionary blood may have taken place—more in Alderney than in Jersey—more in Jersey than in Sark.

"3. When the Litus Saxonicum was established, there may have been thereon lighthouses for the honest sailor, or small piratical holdings for the corsair, as the case might be. There were, however, no emporia or places either rich through the arts of peace, or formidable for the mechanism of war.

"4. When the Irish Church, under the school of St. Columbanus, was in its full missionary vigour, Irish missionaries preached the Gospel to the islanders, and amongst the missionaries and the islanders there may have been a few Saxons of the Litus.

"5. In the sixth century some portion of that mixture of Saxons, Danes, Chattuarii, Leti, Goths, Bretons, and Romanized Gauls, whom the Frank kings drove to the coasts, may have betaken themselves to the islands opposite.

"To summarise—the elements of the population nearest the Channel Islands were:—(1) original Keltic; (2) Roman; (3) Legionary; (4) Saxon; (5) Gothic; (6) Letic; (7) Frank; (8) Vandal—all earlier than the time of Rollo, and most of them German; to which we may add, as a possible element, the Alans of Brittany.

"That the soldiers of the Roman garrison were not necessarily Roman is suggested by the word "Legionary." Some of them are particularly stated to have been foreign. There is indeed special mention of the troop of cavalry from Dalmatia—"Equites Dalmatæ."

The inference from the above, as regards coins current in the Channel Islands prior to the Norman conquest of England, would clearly be that, subsequent to the circulation of the first uninscribed Gaulish coins as imitated from the Phillippus types, there followed the well-struck Roman issues, which, in course of time, were superseded by the coinages used and introduced by later invaders and settlers.

British-struck coins of the Saxon kings are rarely found in the Channel Islands, the coins used at the Saxon period of England being doubtless drawn by these islands from Normandy and Brittany. There have never, so far as is known, been regal or state mints established in the Channel Islands, with the exception of the strange venture by Colonel Smyth in the reign of King Charles I., which will be fully noted in turn hereafter.

"Freluques" and "enseignes" also perhaps appear to have been struck in Guernsey, and a few copper tokens, as will be described, were introduced by banks and firms. But from the time of the Romans until the present century, French and other foreign money has been imported, and formed the recognized currency.

THE EARLIEST COINS OF THE CHANNEL ISLANDS

As referred to in the preceding general notes, the earliest coins known to have been in use in the Channel Islands are of the same types as used at the time on the near coast of France. They are styled Gaulish, and are generally of the following description:—

O. Sinister head in profile; nose, lips, eyes, and ears expressed by duplicate lines; tracery or ornamentation in front of the face, and profuse rolls of curling hair.

R. Figure of a horse, extravagantly drawn and decorated, and with ornaments or gear of some kind above and below. Often the mane of the horse is arranged and curled, as if specially so dressed for parade or show, and almost suggests decorations as still sometimes adopted by American Indian or other barbarian chiefs. There are reins, too, in some instances, and these are sometimes held by a rough representation of an arm and hand. The legs of the horse always indicate gallopping. The symbols underneath it are usually either (1) the wild boar, as perhaps indicative of the most important local wild beast in the chase; (2) the chariot wheel, as representing that the horse would draw this vehicle, there not being room to show the whole on the coin fully and in rear of the horse; (3) the implement described by Sir John Evans[B] as a "lyre-shaped object." It would be most interesting to ascertain what this instrument—which is frequently delineated—may really be. It might be a musical production of the bagpipe character, or a head-dress, or a warlike weapon. An extensive museum or collection of very ancient implements should solve the problem.

As regards the metal of which the coins are made, Sir John Evans, at page 128 of his work, states as follows:—

"These coins are formed of billon or base silver, which appears to vary considerably in the amount of its alloy. From an analysis made by De Caylus (Donop. Médailles Gallo Gäeliques, page 24) of two coins, their compositions were found to be as follows:—

"The weight of the larger pieces ranges from 80 to 105 grains, and that of the smaller coins is about 25 grains."

It will be observed from the above analysis how considerably the proportions of the white metals, as silver and tin, vary in these coins, and this variation, as regards metallic composition, is so universal that amongst a large number in the same "find" you will even, on cleaning the coins, see some of them look as if made of silver, and the colour vary, until you reach some that appear hardly better than wholly of copper. It would be very interesting to know where the metal or ore for these coinages was procured from. There must have been a natural mixture of most of the metals.

I have looked through a "find" of more than 200 Jersey Gaulish coins, which are in the possession of R. R. Lemprière, Esq. They were turned up by the plough on his manor of Rozel; and whatever covering had enclosed them had either gone to decay, or become broken up, as they were quite loose. He had cleaned a few of them. Even to the eye the metallic composition varied greatly—some being of the colour of silver, and some lowering to that of copper. In this lot there were but two of the smaller size of 25 grains, and I think that proportion may perhaps give some indication as to the relative rarity of the two coins; for at a rough estimate one seems to meet only about one in a hundred, which is of the smaller kind. The larger Gaulish coins are common; large "finds" of the types formerly used in the Channel Islands having been made on the adjacent mainland of Normandy and Brittany, and also on the south coast of England.

Sir John Evans mentions (page 128) the hoard at Mount Batten, near Plymouth (Numismatic Journal, Vol. I., page 224), and that in the Arch. Assoc. Journal, Vol. III., page 62, is an account of a find of them at Avranches, written by Mr. C. Roach Smith; also in 1820 nearly 1,000 were discovered in Jersey; and