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falt, TIN, and barley-meal; and thefe, being clofely covered and luted, were placed for five days and nights in a strong refining-furnace. When that period was elapsed, and the metal cooled, they opened the veffels; and, examining the gold, found it perfectly pure, and very little diminished in quantity.* This procefs, of feparating and refining the ore of gold, the ancients inform us, was immemorially practifed in Egypt, and, in reality, it does not materially differ from that used at the present day; lead, tin, and the labour of repeated fufion, being fubftituted by the ancients in the room of the more rapid and eafy process of the moderns, by means of mercury. In those early periods, however, when as yet both the neceffities and the luxuries of life were fewer, gold was frequently found in a state that needed no refining. Without defcending into the dark bofom of the mine, virgin gold was frequently to be met with near the furface, as it was discovered in Peru, and is now found in Achem.

* See Diod, Sic. p. 184; and Agatarchides apud Photium in loco citato.

Of

Of the immenfe quantity of gold poffeffed by the Egyptians, as well as their elegant manufacture of it, in the very early ages to which we allude, abundant teftimony may be brought from writers, both facred and profane, and to their combined evidence we shall conftantly appeal, when poffible, for the truth of our affertions throughout this Differtation. Diodorus, defcribing the grand maufoleum of Ofymandyas, informs us, that the exact sum of the gold and filver dug from the mines of the Thebais, as inscribed on the walls of that temple, amounted to 3,000,000,000 of minæ, or ninety-fix millions of our money; and mentions, in farther proof of the magnificence of that monarch, the ftupendous circle of wrought gold, 365 cubits in circumference, the number of the days of the reformed year of Egypt, which furrounded his tomb.* From a still more authentic record, the Pentateuch of Mofes, may be adduced, in evidence, the golden chain which Pharoah placed around the neck of Jofeph, when he raised him to the dignity of cup-bearer; the exceeding riches in gold and filver carried by

* Diodorus Siculus, lib. i. p. 44.

Abraham

Abraham out of Egypt; the multitude of gold and filver vafes, and other valuable trinkets, which the Ifraelites, though in a state of abject servitude, at their exodus, obtained of their wealthy neighbours; and the bracelets, the ear-rings, and the clafps of gold, which they afterwards voluntarily offered to Mofes for the fabrication of those fumptuous works, for the golden crown, the table of fhew-bread, and the rich chandelier of beaten gold, devoted to the holiest rites of their religion. The greatest mart, however, for this metal on the African coaft, was the golden Sofala, which Mr. Bruce has incontestably proved to be the Ophir of Scriptures; and it was probably from those mines that David and Solomon obtained those immense treafures, which animated the former to project, and enabled the latter to complete, the stately Temple of Jerufalem with all the various golden ornaments used in its public worship. In one voyage only, the ships of Solomon are reported by Jofephus to have brought home four hundred and fifty talents of gold; by which the writer meant the talent used at Tyre, moft probably current at Jerufalem, and thought by Arbuthnot to be of the same

value as that of Attica, amounting to between three and four millions fterling.* If these voyages to Ophir were frequently repeated, there can be but little of hyperbole in that expreffion which occurs in Scripture, of his making filver to be at Jerufalem as the ftones of the street; because filver at that time bore a far inferior value to gold than it bears in these days; it being then in the proportion of fixteen to one; whereas, it is now only as twelve to one. Nor can we wonder at David's having left in his treasury a hundred thousand talents of gold, and a thousand thousand talents of filver. 1 Chronicles, xxii. though we cannot, in this inftance, compute by the Euboean talent, which in gold, according to the fame author, would amount to 547,500,000l. and in filver to above 342,000,000l. of our money; an enormous and incredible fum, which the treasury of no fovereign or nation on earth ever contained. Dr. Arbuthnot, therefore, judiciously contends that we should calculate by the most ancient Phoenician talent, alluded to by Homer, (and, in confequence,

* Vide Jofephi Antiquit. lib. vii, and Arbuthnot on Ancient Coins, p. 42.

called

called by him Homeric,) of value far lefs confiderable. Probably Jofephus gives us the true amount of that wealth, when he states the whole at the round fum of 100,000 talents; that is, the Alexandrian talent, most in use at the period of his writing.

Hiero, the Phoenician monarch, we are told, inftigated by perfonal friendship, and his admiration of the confummate wisdom of Solomon, in his favour broke through that jealous reserve which marked all the naval proceedings of that enterprizing nation. He not only affifted the Jewish fovereign with his fubjects to build a fleet for the express purpose of commerce, but also to navigate that fleet to the destined port, to the rich fource of that wealth which exalted Tyre to her envied pre-eminence in power and splendor over all the cities of the ancient world. If the fatellite was thus bright in riches and in glory, with what furpaffing, with what unequalled, luftre muft the primary orb have been invested; for, it was not only from the golden Sofala, and the ports of Africa, that the obtained this infinite fupply of bullion, but we have shewn that, in the mines of the Pyrenæan mountains, at once the PERU and Porosi of anti

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