les, as Sir Richard Hoare tells
us, were constantly throwing up to the surface numerous coins and
fragments of pottery. We are indebted to the digging propensities of
another animal for the richest collection of silver ornaments which is
contained in our Museum: For the great hoard of massive silver brooches,
torcs, ingots, Cufic and other coins, etc., weighing some 16 lbs. in
all, which was found in 1857 in the Bay of Skaill in Orkney, was
discovered in consequence of several small pieces of the deposit having
been accidentally uncovered by the burrowings of the busy rabbit. That
hoard itself is interesting on this other account, that it is one of 130
or more similar silver deposits, almost all found by digging, that have
latterly been discovered, stretching from Orkney, along the shores and
islands of the Baltic, through Russia southward, towards the seat of the
government of those Eastern Caliphs who issued the Cufic coins which
generally form part of these collections--this long track being
apparently the commercial route along which those merchants passed, who,
from the seventh or eighth to the eleventh century, carried on the
traffic which then subsisted between Asia and the north of Europe.

The spade and plough of the husbandman are constantly disinterring
relics of high value to the antiquary and numismatist. The matchless
collection of gold ornaments contained in the Museum of the Irish
Academy has been almost entirely discovered in the course of common
agricultural operations. The pickaxe of the ditcher, and of the canal
and railway navvies, have often also, by their accidental strokes,
uncovered rich antiquarian treasures. The remarkable massive silver
chain, ninety-three ounces in weight, which we have in our Museum, was
found about two feet below the surface, when the Caledonian Canal was
dug in 1808. One of the largest gold armlets ever discovered in Scotland
was disinterred at Slateford in cutting the Caledonian Railway. Our
Museum contains only a model of it; for the original--like many similar
relics, when they consisted of the precious metals--was sold for its
mere weight in bullion, and lost--at least to Archaeology--in the
melting-pot of the jeweller, in consequence of the former unfortunate
state of our law of treasure-trove. And it cannot perhaps be stated too
often or too loudly, that such continued wanton destruction of these
relics is now so far provided against; for by a Government ordinance,