Occurrence of an Edwardian Penny in Liverpool.

About three years ago, whilst foundations were being dug for a house at the back of Islington in Liverpool, a silver coin was picked up by a person whose husband is engaged at the Free Public Museum and who lately handed it to the writer. It proves to be a Dublin-minted penny of King Edward I or II, and by no means one of frequent occurrence, although two or three examples of the type have been found upon the sea beach of Cheshire. Considering that since its discovery this piece has been worn upon a watch chain, it is in excellent preservation.

Medieval Crock at Bold.

The following notice is extracted from the Proceedings of the British Archæological Association, January 9th, 1867. (See their Journal for March, page 87.)

"Dr. Kendrick exhibited an ampulla-shaped jar or bottle, "about three inches and three-quarters high, of well-baked "earthenware, overspread in great part by a brownish black "plumbiferous glaze. This vessel was found in the remains "of the moat at Cranshaw Hall, Bold, near Warrington, in "November, 1866, and was probably designed to hold some "balsamic substance or viscid essence. Its date cannot be "later than the sixteenth century."

PRODUCE OF THE SEA-BEACH OF CHESHRE.

The local archæological discoveries of the past year are, as usual, chiefly confined to the sea-beach of Wirral; and, in point of numbers, a more than average yield has been secured of the class of minor objects of interest here occurring for at least half a century, and in all probability from an infinitely earlier period. Before proceeding to description, the writer feels bound to notice the attack made by Mr. Joseph Boult upon the position held by Dr. Hume and other writers,

including himself, respecting several important points assented to by perhaps all earnest enquirers save this assailant. He has undoubtedly played the part of sceptic most admirably ; and though many suppose them to have been adduced more as a basis of argument and theory than aught else, we are compelled to consider his suppositions and deductions as bona fide.

LIGHTHOUSE &c.--The endeavours to prove the non-existence of a former lighthouse at Leasowe, upon the shore to westward of the present one, are anything but aided by the remembrances of several aged people who in their youth saw the remains of the foundations or what were said to be such by others old enough to have seen the building existing in the middle of the last century.* This is confirmed by the dredging up of bricks and mortar in the identical position, by the anchors of vessels occasionally moored here; as the writer has repeatedly heard from the late Captain Powell, of Seacombe, as occurring in his own experience and that of others. There are likewise many who remember the well of excellent fresh water, walled round for security, situate between the site just mentioned and the bank, but yet some distance from the latter; and the question may well arise in any unprejudiced mind--Why should such care have been taken to keep the water of this well untainted if no one lived within half-a-mile to use it? In all human probability it supplied the wants of the lighthouse keepers, as it may have done long previously for part of a village on or near the Kirkway" Dr. Hume has found mention of in connection with "Lees Kirk," which, rightly or wrongly, is supposed to have stood to seaward of the present shore and below any

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* Mrs. Peter Ledsham of Wallasey, a native of this immediate neighbourhood, testifies to remembering her father carting old bricks from this spot, known to all as the ruins of the old lighthouse. Probably the lower portion of this earliest known lighthouse of the district, was built of brick, supporting a superstructure of wood.

point now dry at other than the lowest ebbs during spring tides. The mere fact of no historical or traditional proof being known as extant is no criterion of former non-existence; and we have not far to trace for an example. Upon the neighbouring Hilbre Island, it will be remembered, the writer recently discovered a cemetery wholly unrecorded and unknown, though used probably for many centuries, and which might with as good reason have been repudiated as that suspected to have been extant upon the Leasowe beach, until its very site would appear to have been completely swept away by the encroaching and wasteful element. Even in our own times and district, as at Overchurch, ancient burial places are fast falling from the knowledge and even traditions of neighbouring residents.

GROWTH IN SITU OF THE TREES.-Mr. Boult here mistakes his ground in several important particulars. He remarks upon the depth at which trunks of trees and animal remains have been found in the upper end of old Wallasey Pool, proceeding to occupy several pages of argument based upon a similar deposition of marine sand, peat &c. occurring upon the Hoylake beach-a supposition wholly devoid of foundation. The former locality was a deeply worn gully and marine creek into which trees, animals &c. have often been engulphed, and to compare this spot with a series of comparatively regular and level strata, implying undisturbed deposition, is to expose a want of personal acquaintance with the main fact of his subject-the plainly developed physical conformation of the beach. In point of fact there is no trace of marine intrusion prior to that of the present day, every alluvial sediment, whether clayey or fibrous, containing fresh water shells and vegetable maiter, alone. It is only when we come to the "mediaæval stratum" and the still more recent drift sand above it that marine shells-all of comestible crustaceæ -occur. Below, we find a thin stratum of blue clay (of

necessity deposited in a quiescent condition of fresh water) overlying the upper bed of vegetable formation, so often. denominated peat, that Mr. Boult and others have apparently concluded, without any thorough inspection, its composition to be analogous to that of the Lancashire and Cheshire mosses, or a combination of decayed heather and ling, with a basis of sphagnum and other marsh plants. A personal scrutiny would soon explode this assumption; and a knowledge of the truth would have spared Mr. Boult a world of writing and specious reasoning. In the greater portion of many scores of fragments of this substance, taken from different reaches of the shore, the writer has been unable to detect either heath or ling, the mass being composed almost exclusively of the remains of trees-chiefly larch, birch, beech and a few oaks-the exception being the fibre of marsh plants occurring here and there in the upper portion of the stratum only. This all but thoroughly arboreal composite, perfectly black in colour (until dried), usually bears the name of submarine forest, containing, as it still does, a vast number of stumps of the old trees erect in the spots where they grew, with here and there a prostrated trunk, lying, as it had fallen, in a horizontal position.* Few stumps are found rising above a foot higher than the level of the consolidated stratum, evidencing in most cases a decay previous to the fall of the trunk. Between this arboreal bed-often measuring two feet in thickness—and the underlying one of similar composition, is a second bed of blue clay or silt, which Mr. Boult denies to be permeated by the roots of the trees above, as he insists

Several local geologists having affirmed that some of these lie atop of others, therein finding additional evidence of their common growth elsewhere, the writer has examined the so-called most remarkable instances and is enabled virtually to ignore this assumed fact. The roots of some fine oaks and beeches have certainly spread their arms over fallen and decayed larch-trunks in a few instances, but inasmuch as no single upright stump or trunk can be found upon another, the supposition and hasty deduction therefrom are alike valueless.

would certainly prove the case had they grown where found. Here, again, he is in error; for their rootlets do permeate the clay in great number, but not there meeting with adequate nourishment, have naturally become weakly and decayed. The roots proper have strengthened and flourished laterally as is natural where they had a chance, viz., the surrounding soil-one ever gaining in depth, being composed of the leaves long accumulating from the trees and earlier shrubs of the old wood, which at this remote period would lie at some little distance inland, possibly even a couple of miles, and consequently be less exposed to marine blasts.

As has been repeatedly mentioned, the Roman objects all occur where these stumps are most numerous and upon or just below the surface of the upper stratum of this arboreal soil, thus pointing unmistakably to it as having been the surface in Roman times and possibly whilst the wood was still in growth. They are all objects likely to be lost from the person in this public locality, for such it probably was, as in approaching the elevated promontory existing to seaward the roads from various parts of the peninsula would here converge. The site mentioned in all probability was that of a small settlement from Roman until Tudor times, when the last houses on and near the Dove Spit (still rapidly diminishing) were without doubt abandoned for a safer location at the new village. Again, the Roman objects are never found commingled with primeval or aboriginal remains—a further proof, if such were needed, of the absurd belief professed by Mr. Boult of these relics having been stolen from the persons of their invaders by the ancient Britons. Such objects were not necessarily made in Rome, or even in Italy or Gaul; for the Romans occupying this country nearly four hundred years, during the greater part of this time taught native workmen and thoroughly impressed their