ANCIENT MEMORIALS 167 Etrurians coveted during their period of sea power; but the Car- thaginians, its first discoverers, prohibited them, wishing to keep it for their own uses. If the Etrurians were thus well informed concerning one island of these eastern Atlantic archipelagoes, it is a fair conjecture that they had visited the others. However this may be, it seems that the Carthaginians left memorials on Corvo. At least this is the most reasonable explana- tion of the extraordinary story repeated by Humboldt 7 in the "Examen Critique," apparently with full faith in its main feature at least, notwithstanding the fascinating atmosphere of romance and wonder which hangs about the details. In the month of November, 1749, it appears, a violent storm shattered an edifice (presumably submerged) off the coast of Corvo, and the surf washed out of a vault pertaining to the building a broken vase still containing golden and copper coins. These were taken to a convent or monastery (probably on some neighboring island). Some of them were given away as curiosities, but nine were preserved and sent to a Father Flores at Madrid, who gave them to M. Podolyn. Some of them bore for design the full figure of a horse; others bore horses' heads. Reproductions of the designs were published in the Memoirs of the Gothenburg Royal Society 8 and compared with those on coins in the collection of the Prince Royal of Denmark. It seems to be agreed that they were cer- tainly Phoenician coins of North Africa, partly Carthaginian. It has been suggested 9 that they may have been left by Nor- man or Arab seafarers, who certainly journeyed among the Azores in the Middle Ages. But, as Humboldt points out, that these should have left a hoard of exclusively Phoenician coins, so much more ancient than their own, without even a single specimen of any other mintage, appears very unlikely. On the other hand, it 7 Alexander von Humboldt: Examen critique de 1'histoire de la geographic du nouveau continent et des progres de 1'astronomie nautique aux quinzieme et seizieme sicles, 5 vols., Paris, 1836-39; reference in Vol. 2, pp. 237-240. 8 Del G6theborgska Wetenskaps och Witterhets Samhallets Handlingar, Vol. i, 1778, pp. 106-108, and P1.6. See also Moedas phenicias e cyrenaicas encontradas em 1749 na ilha do Corvo, Archive dos Azores, Vol. 3, pp. 11-113. Conrad Malte-Brun: Precis de geographic universelle, 8 vols., Paris, 1810-29; reference in Vol. i of that edition, constituting "L'Histoire de la Geographic," 1810, p. 596.
