TREASURE-TROVE, in legal Latin called thesaurus inventus, is a branch of the revenue of the crown of England, and belongs to the king or his grantees. Where coin, plate, or precious metals are found hidden in the earth or any private place, and the owner or person who deposited them is unknown, the property becomes vested in the king by virtue of his pre rogative. But if the owner is known, or is ascertained after the treasure is found, the property belongs to him and not to the king. By a constitution of Hadrian (Inst. i. tit. 1., § 39), if a man found treasure (thesauri) in his own ground, it belonged to the finder, and also if he found it in a place which was sacer (sacred to the gods above), or religious (sacred to the Oh Manes). If amen found treasure accidentally in another man's ground, the constitution gave half to the finder, and half to the owner of the ground. If he found treasure in the ground of the em peror, the finder had half, and the emperor half; and the law was the same if the ground belonged to the fiscus, or to the Roman people, or to any civic community. A constitution of the Emperors Leo and Zeno (Cod. x. tit. 15) is to the same effect as far as it goes. Grotius says that
the title of the prince to treasure-trove had in modern times been so generally established in Europe as to have become jos commune et quasi gentinm' (De Jure Belli et Pads, lib. ii. c. viii. § 7). The law of England adopts the Roman defi nition of treasure-trove of Paulus (Dig. 41, tit. i. § 31). (thesaurus) is an antient deposit of money, of which there is no record so as to give it owner : for thus it becomes his who has found it, because it does not belong to another ;" and to entitle the crown to the property, it must appear to have been hidden or deposited by some one who at the time had the intention of reclaiming it. Whenever therefore the intention to abandon appears from the circumstances— as for instance, where the property has been found in the sea, or in a pond or river, or even openly placed upon the surface of the earth—it belongs to the finder. In England the concealment of treasure-trove from the king was ap parently formerly a capital offence; at present it is a misdemeanour punishable by fine and imprisonment. (Blackstoue's Commentaries, vol. i. p. 295.)