218 NATURAL HISTORY OF PBECIOUS METALS, &c.
world.
It is therefore evident that he was struck with this their strange
substitute for a circulating medium, and deemed it especially worthy of
mention.
The
estimation of the constituents of this currency coincide with the
relative value of the two metals amongst the aborigines—the copper
taking the place of gold, the iron of silver; for Caesar has just
before stated that all the copper they used was imported, whereas iron
they had, though only in small quantities, upon the sea-coast
(doubtless alluding to the old Sussex mines). Metal in thick wire, bent
up into rings of a fixed weight, was perhaps the very earliest form of
currency in the world. The ancient Egyptians knew no other, and to this
day it is universal (for copper and gold) with the tribes on the Guinea
coast.* Such a form is recommended by its portability on the fingers,
or of several linked together into a chain, besides the convenient
shape of the piece of metal for conversion into other uses.
The
above view is corroborated by the fact that no British coins exist that
can be attributed to the natives beyond the limits of Belgio influence.
None are ever discovered in the region occupied by the Silures, that
powerful tribe which maintained its independence the latest of all, nor
in the country of the Ordovices, though actually abounding in gold ;
neither anywhere to the north of the Solway, though so long the seat of
an independent British kingdom.
A
few years after Caesar's landing, Cunobelinus, a king of the Iceni, the
Belgae of the east coast, having acquired some little tincture of Roman
education, gave up the old
