A short time ago the Society of Antiquaries announced some interesting discoveries made during excavations at Hengistbury Head, Hampshire. Among the curiosities was a collection of many thousand gold, silver and bronze coins which had once been used by the ancient Britons and the Gauls. Most of them were copied from Greek originals, princi¬pally a coin of Philip of Macedon about the middle of the fourth century B.C., with a head on the reverse and a chariot on the obverse. Some were covered only with dots and lines. Bronze and even gold cups were found in places where the people had apparently lived in huts of mud and wattle, and traces of the refining of iron and other metal-work were also discovered.

Long, however, before the time of the ancient Britons the precious metals were being sought and worked by the nations of antiquity, and particularly in the East. From the beginnings of civilised life gold and silver have been always in request, both for ornament and as a means of exchange, while the other metals were utilised especially for weapons and useful articles.

Gold was probably the first metal to be discovered, as it exists in its pure state in so many countries, lies on the surface, attracts the eye and can be easily secured. It is chiefly found in veins of quartz or as ” placer ” gold in the gravels and sands of streams as the result of the weathering of auriferous rocks. ” Grains ” or ” flakes ” are disseminated through the quartz or gravel; when found in larger pieces, they are ” nuggets.”

Much of the gold of commerce is obtained as a by-product, in the mining of silver, copper and other metals ; and gold and silver are frequently found and mined together. Gold has always, however, maintained an ascendancy over silver among precious metals ; one of the principal reasons, perhaps, being that it does not tarnish like silver. On the other hand, it is comparatively soft, and has to be alloyed with other metals—principally silver and copper—to mate it durable.

As a rule, wherever gold has been found conquest and exploration has taken place, leading to subsequent development of lands and countries which otherwise might never have become highly civilized or, at any rate, would have been much further back in the march of progress.