- its

rent of Wealth which conftantly followed it, transferred, by CYRUS, from BABYLON to SUSA. The immenfe Wealth in Bullion and coined Money of the ancient PERSIANS, principal Sources, its own Mines in CarmaNIA, the Mines of LYDIA and THRACE, and the vast internal Commerce carried on with INDIA. The Whole fell a Prey to ALEXANDER on bis Conquest of Perfia, and to bis Captains after his Deceafe.—The filver Mines of ATTICA, and the accumulated Treasures preferved in the GRECIAN Temples, confidered. Thofe Temples, the public Banks of GREECE, and the Priests the Bankers. A Survey is now taken of the Wealth of ancient INDIA, the great central Depofit, for mang Centuries, of the Bullion both of the Eaftern and Western World, that Bullion principally melted down and formed into Statues of the numerous fuperior and fubordinate Deities of INDIA, as well as to fabricate the fplendid An Account of Utenfils of their Temples. the Treafures of that Kind found in those

›

Temples

Temples by Sultan MAHMUD, of GAZNA, and other Invaders of HINDOSTAN.-The Author returns from HINDOSTAN to the Confideration of the Wealth obtained by ALEXANDER, and its Difperfion by his Succeffors, the PTOLEMIES of EGYPT, the SELEUCIDE of SYRIA, and the MACEDONIAN Sovereigns.-The whole Wealth of ASIA centred finally among the ROMANS. A confiderable Part diffipated by their Profligacy; a fill more confiderable Portion fell to the Lot of the Goths, Vandals, and other barbarous Nations who plundered ROME; but, by far the most confiderable Portion was buried, during the Times of Tyranny and Turbulence, in that Earth from which it originally came.

Tof the ancient world in gold and filver

O form any adequate idea of the wealth

bullion, we must turn our eyes to the countries in which mines were firft difcovered and wrought. Now the region, moft early mentioned in history facred and profane as producing gold, is HAVILAH, in the Pentateuch

of Mofes, and the gold which it produced is faid to have been remarkable for its purity. Havilah, which the river Pison watered, is, by the best commentators, afferted to be Arabia; and, accordingly, we read both in Agatarchides and Strabo, that Arabia anciently abounded in gold in fo extraordinary a manner, that its inhabitants would give doublethe weight of that valuable metal for iron, treble its weight for brass, and ten times its weight for filver.* We are informed by those authors, that, in digging the earth in the fouthern parts of Arabia, they found pieces of gold that needed not the refiner's fire fometimes as big as olive-ftones, and, at others, as big as walnuts; and that, in particular, through the country of the Deliæ, ran a stream, in whose sands were intermixed pieces of gold of confiderable magnitude, while the fand at its mouth appeared as one fhining solid mass entirely composed of it, and that the furniture and utenfils of their houses, their cups and veffels, were made of it. On this account, as well as its producing fuch

* Vide Agatarchides Cnid. apud Photium, p. 1370, et etiam Strabonis Geograph. lib. xvi. p. 583.

quantities

quantities of myrrh, caffia, frankincense, and all the finest drugs and perfumes, that part of Arabia obtained the name of Felix.

Although a confiderable portion of this relation may have truth for its bafis, yet the greater part is probably exaggerated; for the immemorial trade of the Arabians to the coast of Africa was, doubtlefs, one fource of their thus abounding in those precious metals, which are the chief object of traffic. Of their early engagement in commercial concerns, no ftronger teftimony need be brought than that which Scripture itself affords; for, it was to a caravan of Ifhmaelitish (that is, Arabian) merchants, going down to Egypt with fpices and balm, that the patriarch Jofeph was fold. To Africa, therefore, and particularly to the Ethiopians, we muft next direct our course, as a principal and unfailing fource of the riches of the ancient world; for, in truth, every province of that vast empire abounded in mines: gold was borne down by torrents from the mountains, and flowed in the ftreams of the valley; the Ethiopians anciently had fuch plenty of it, that, to fhew their contempt for what excited the envy and admiration of the whole

world

world befide, they are faid to have manacled their prisoners taken in war with golden fet

ters.

There is a curious account given in Diodorus Siculus of the mode after which the Egyptians worked and refined the metal obtained from the mines in the Thebais; for the Lower Egypt, as we before obferved, was entirely deftitute of mines. They commenced the operation by pounding the ore, and reducing it to grains of the fize of millet. It was then reduced to powder under millftones of great weight. The gold-duft, thus finely ground, was spread, as in the process used in refpect to the tin ore, detailed above, over a floor of boards, fomewhat inclined, and well washed with water, which ran off from the floping declivity, bearing with it the groffer terreftrial particles that had adhered to it. This washing was feveral times repeated; and the ore, after having been well rubbed between the hands of the workmen, and thoroughly cleaned by fponges from all remaining filth, was configned over to thofe whose business it was to fmelt it. These artists deposited the gold duft in earthen vases, mixing with it, in certain proportions, LEAD

fal