. Historical notes : Public Library of New South Wales. ich the collector was able to obtain. Still turning over the contents of the librarians safe, one sees two Books ofHours—Roman Catholic prayer books—one at least of which dates back half acentury before the art of printing—to 1402. They are hand-printed on parchment,with beautifully-illuminated capitals in colour and burnished gold, and illustratedwith pictures done in colour. A manuscript copy of the Koran, also a finely-producedwork, contains the inscription, Written by the caligrapher, Muhammad Suhra-wardi. Placed in the Royal Library
. Historical notes : Public Library of New South Wales. ich the collector was able to obtain. Still turning over the contents of the librarians safe, one sees two Books ofHours—Roman Catholic prayer books—one at least of which dates back half acentury before the art of printing—to 1402. They are hand-printed on parchment,with beautifully-illuminated capitals in colour and burnished gold, and illustratedwith pictures done in colour. A manuscript copy of the Koran, also a finely-producedwork, contains the inscription, Written by the caligrapher, Muhammad Suhra-wardi. Placed in the Royal Library at Delhi, 23rd Dec, , 1608. COINS AND TOKENS. A fairly comjilete collection of coins and tokens illustrative of the currencyof New South Wales prior to the establishment of mints in the various colonies, wasaccumulated by Mr. Mitchell. Among them are the Portuguese Johanna, whichwas current here at £4; the Indian rupee, current at 2s. 6d.; the Dutch guelder,current at ; the Spanish dollar, current at ; and the English penny, current. THE PUBLIC LIBRARY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 97 at 2d. There is also a specimen of the holey dollar, bearing date 1S13. It isexplained that in the early days of New South Wales the currency was very restricted,and it was the practice of the colonists to pay for goods brought from England withthe coins they possessed, which were then shipped away, being also current in otherparts of the world. This accentuated the currency problem. To solve it, theauthorities conceived the idea of stamping out the inside portion of the Spanishdollar, thus removing a piece about the diameter of a threepenny piece. The holeydollar retained its face value of 5s. in Australia, but was spoiled for circulation else-where, while the centre portion, called the dump was circulated as a new coinwith a value of about is. 3d. Mr. Mitchell was able to secure specimens of boththe dollar and the dump. The tokens are a most interesting collection, and someof them are o
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