"A most interesting circumstance, the particulars of which have much occupied my attention, has occurred here lately. Some poor day laborers in the neighborhood of the small town of Jever, on the border of Marsch and Gest, found, in a circle of a few feet, at a depth of from 7 to 8 feet, a heap of small Roman coins, of fine silver, being 5000 pieces of Roman denarii. The half of them immediately fell into the hands of a Jew of Altona, at a very inconsiderable price. The greatest portion of the remainder were dispersed before I gained intelligence of it, and I only succeeded in collecting some 500 pieces for the Grand Duke's collection, who permitted me to remunerate the discoverers with four times the value of the metal. The coins date between the years 69 and 170 after Christ while the oldest which have hitherto been discovered on the European Continent, in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, &c., date from 170 or 180. Each piece bears the effigy of one of the Emperors of the time, the reverse is adorned with the impression of some occurrence (a woman lying down with a chariot wheel, and beneath it the legend via Trajaceæ, a trophy, and on the escutcheon Dacia capta, &c.), and these are so various that pairs have only been found in a few cases. The discovery is so much the more wonderful, as, historically, no trace can be found of the Romans having penetrated so far down as Jever."
The French Minister of the Interior has decided on postponing the Exhibition of Painting in Paris this year until November. The comparative absence from the capital during the fine season of strangers and of rich amateurs likely to be purchasers of pictures, is the motive for this change in the period of opening the Salon.
The French papers state that the submarine electric telegraph between Dover and Calais is to be opened to the public on the 4th of May, the anniversary of the proclamation of the French Republic by the Constituent Assembly.
The Indian Mail brings copies of a new journal published in China on the first day of the present year, and called the Pekin Monitor. It is written in Chinese, and carefully printed, on fine paper. The first number contains an ordinance of the emperor, Toa-kouang, forbidding the emigration of his subjects to California or the State of Costa Rica.
It is stated in the Berliner Allgemeine Kirchen Zeitung, that the Jews have obtained a firman from the Porte, granting them permission to build a temple on Mount Zion. The projected edifice is, it is said, to equal Solomon's Temple in magnificence.
The creation of a university for New South Wales is a striking expression of the rapid development of the history of a colony founded, in times comparatively recent, with the worst materials of civilization grafted on the lowest forms of barbarism existing on the earth. The new institution is to be at Sydney; and a sum of £30,000 has been, it is said, voted for the building and £5000 for its fittings-up. It will contain at first chairs of the Classical Languages, Mathematics, Chemistry, Natural History, Natural Philosophy, Mechanics, Physiology, and the Medical Sciences; and professorships of History, Philosophy, and Political Economy are to be hereafter added. There is to be no faculty of Theology—and no religious tests.
The late Dr. Potts, inventor of the hydraulic pile-driving process, and other mechanical inventions, expired at his house in Buckingham-street, Strand, on the 23d ultimo. Dr. Potts belonged originally to the medical profession; but by inclination, even from school-boy days, and while a class-fellow with the present Premier and the Duke of Bedford, he appears to have devoted himself to mechanical and engineering pursuits. His name, however, will be most closely associated for the future with the ingenious process for driving piles.
It is said that "among the agriculturists of Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, and Herefordshire," there is a grand scheme of emigration afloat, which projects the purchase of a million acres of land in one of the Western States of America.
Some of the paper slips dropped by the telegraphing balloons, sent up experimentally by the Admiralty at Whitehall, have been returned by post from Hamburg and Altona, a distance of 450 miles direct.
Box tunnel, London, which is 3192 yards in length, was an object of some interest on Tuesday, the 9th of April, as on that morning at twenty-five minutes past five the sun shone through it. The only other periods that such an event occurs are on the 3d and 4th of September.