ON THE KIMMERIDGE "COAL MONEY."
[Read at Canterbury, September 10, 1844.]
An investigation of that antiquarian puzzle, the so-called "Kimmeridge Coal Money," may not be considered inapt on this occasion, as furnishing facts from which indications may be afforded of the state and progress of the arts amongst the earlier inhabitants of Britain.
The articles termed "Kimmeridge Coal Money" are found only in one locality, in the pseudo-isle of Purbeck, on the southern coast of Dorsetshire. They are mentioned and briefly described by Hutchins, the historian of Dorsetshire; who, however, offers no opinion in regard to them. A short treatise on them was published a few years since by Mr. W. A. Miles, who constructed a very ingenious hypothesis on the subject, attributing these obscure relics to the hands of Phœnician artists, and regarding them, not as money in the way of a circulating currency, "but as representatives of coin, and of some mystical use in sacrificial or sepulchral rites."
These curious articles are found in two little secluded valleys open to the sea, divided by an intervening ridge of considerable elevation, and known as Kimmeridge and Worthbarrow bays. These bays are in the wildest and least frequented part of Purbeck, where the ploughshare is scarcely known, and the scanty population, retaining much of a primitive character, live remote from the busy world with which they have but rare intercourse. It is beneath the unbroken pastures of this romantic district, that the "Kimmeridge Coal Money" is to be sought for and found.
The material of which these articles are formed is a bituminous shale, of which an extensive bed exists on that part of the coast. It has been much used in the neighbourhood as fuel, and is still in request by the inhabitants for that purpose. It burns freely, with a white ash and slaty residue, and diffuses a disagreeable bituminous odour throughout the apartment in which it may be consumed.
In form these articles are flat circular pieces with bevelled and moulded edges, from 114 inch to 212 inches in diameter, and from 14 to 58 of an inch in thickness. The accuracy with which the circular form is preserved, and
