The season was not particularly cold, but was the wettest in my recollection.

1830.-Opened with a severe frost till February, followed by a warm dry March, without a storm or a shower. April 1st, a fall of snow till noon, whilst a swallow was seen flying about at Trevereux.

1831.-On the 6th of May occurred a most severe frost, the young shoots and leaves of the oak and ash were destroyed, fruit-trees of all sorts were greatly injured, and even the grass was checked to such a degree, that it never recovered from its effects.

Ice was nearly half an inch thick on the ponds on the com

mon.

A severe frost, but inferior to the last described in its effects, occurred on the night of the 28th May 1818.

Earliest Knowledge of Gold and Silver.-Hesiod.-Scandinavian Museum.-The Patriarchs.-The Book of Job.-Accumulation of Wealth with the Hebrew Nation.-Accumulations in Syria and Persia; in Greece; in Rome.

IN

IN the earliest stages of society, so many and such great difficulties were opposed to the use of all metallic substances, that the discovery and application of them to the purposes of social life must have been slow and gradual.

The most ancient records of our race, the Sacred Writings, as well as the works of the earliest profane authors, have, however, communicated such intimations of the knowledge and adaptation of the more precious metals to the use of mankind, as tends to excite curiosity and to attract attention to the subject.

The general voice of antiquity affirms, that gold, silver, and copper, or brass (aes), were the first metals discovered; and that they were used partly as ornaments, and partly as instruments of war or of industry; for though, from their softness, they were not the best calculated for. the latter purposes, they were better adapted to them than those implements of flint or other hard stones or hard wood, which had been before used by

the most ancient tribes, and which were also found among the savage people inhabiting Australia, who were discovered in the middle of the last century.

A well-known passage in Hesiod affirms, that, in remote ages, "The earth was worked with brass, because iron had not been discovered;" and Lucretius bears testimony to the same purport, in book 5. l. 1286:

"Et prior aeris erat, quam ferri, cognitus usus."

*

This is confirmed by the implements of copper found in the ancient mines, which will be hereafter noticed, in Siberia and Nubia; whose working must have ceased some thousand years

ago.

When Brazil was first discovered by the Portuguese, the rude inhabitants used fish-hooks of gold, but had not iron, though their soil abounded in that metal. The people in Hispaniola and Mexico were, in like manner, unacquainted with iron when first visited by the Spaniards; though they had both ornaments and implements of gold, and weapons of copper, which latter, as we learn from the analysis of Humboldt, they had acquired the art of hardening by an alloy of tin.

This subject has been illustrated in Denmark, by opening many Scandinavian tumuli of very remote ages, from which have been collected specimens of knives, daggers, swords, and implements of industry, which are preserved and arranged in the Museum of Copenhagen. There are tools of various kinds formed of flint or other hard stone, in shapes resembling our wedges, axes, chisels, hammers, and knives, which are presumed to be those first invented. There are swords, daggers, and knives, the blades of which are of gold, whilst an edge of iron is formed for the purpose of cutting. Some of the tools and weapons are formed principally of copper, with edges of iron; and in many of the implements, the profuse application of copper and gold, when contrasted with the parsimony evident in the expenditure of iron, seems to prove, that, at the unknown. period, and among the unknown people who raised the tumuli, which antiquarian research has lately explored, gold, as well as copper, were much more abundant products than iron.

Copper, in the more remote ages, was not only commonly,

but in some, if not in all, exclusively used for money, and at these periods may be viewed as one of the precious metals; yet the changes that have since taken place have rendered gold and silver more entitled to that name, and will be so considered in the farther progress of this inquiry.

Some of the earliest notices which have reached the present day of the estimation of gold and silver, are in the account of the condition of Abraham, the progenitor of the Hebrew people, supposed to have lived two thousand years before our Christian era. We read, "that he was rich in cattle, and in silver, and in gold*." On the death of his wife, he purchased a field for a burying-place, the payment for which was made with four hundred shekels of silver, which he delivered not in coin, but "by weight, according to the currency of merchants+.”

Joseph, the great grandson of Abraham, was sold by his brethren to a caravan of Arabs, travelling towards Egypt with the productions of their country, for twenty pieces of silver‡. Afterwards, when established in Egypt as minister of the king of that country, his brothers brought "silver in their sacks' mouths," to purchase corn during a season of scarcity in their native land. In the interesting sequel of the history of Joseph, when making himself known to his family, he presented to his younger and favourite brother three hundred pieces of silver §.

Though gold was known at that early period, and its value. highly estimated, we find no intimation which can lead to the inference, that it performed the function of money, either by being used as the common measure of value for other commodities, or by being employed as the medium for exchanging one kind of goods for another.

The author of the Book of Job, whether, as some have supposed, a cotemporary of Abraham, or, as others have thought, of a date some hundred years later, is one of the oldest writers whose works have been transmitted entire to the present day: He was not only acquainted with gold and silver, but was accurately informed of the manner in which they were procured. Surely," says he, “ there is a vein for the silver, and a place for the gold where they fine it." He farther states, "that the

66

* Genesis xli. 2.

Genesis xxxviii. 29.

+ Genesis xxiii. 14, 15, and 16.

§ Genesis xlv. 22.

earth hath dust of gold*." Though living in a country which yields none of the precious metals, he was thus familiarly acquainted with the fact, that silver was found in veins, and gold commonly in small particles.

Among the people with whom Job was connected, silver seems to have passed from hand to hand by weight, as money; whilst gold was appropriated like the onyx, the sapphire, crystals, pearls, topazes, and other jewels, as ornaments for the person. At the conclusion of that beautiful poem, the restored wealth of Job is reckoned up in cattle, not in money; and though his visiters brought each a piece of money, probably silver, yet each of them brought also an ear-ring of gold +.

Of the Accumulation of the precious Metals, from the most remote Ages to the establishment of the Imperial Government in Rome.

There are no intimation in the Sacred Writings (Hebrews) which afford any means of forming an estimate of the whole quantity of the precious metals which had been collected in the patriarchal days. We must, therefore, rest satisfied with the scanty accounts with which they furnish, and proceed to later. periods, when the relations of the several accumulations are more frequent, though not marked with any such precision as can inspire implicit confidence.

In the history of the reign of Solomon, as recorded in the Book of Kings and in the Chronicles, we find statements of the quantities of the precious metals used in the royal palace and the holy temple erected by that monarch. We read, that "he overlaid the house within with pure gold: and he made a partition by the chains of gold before the oracle, and he overlaid the oracle with gold. And the whole house he overlaid with gold, until he had finished the whole house: also the whole altar, that was by the oracle, he overlaid with gold‡.”

The quantity of gold which Solomon collected in a single year, is stated to be (1 Kings x. 14), six hundred threescore and six talents, or perhaps about L. 300,000 in value at the present moment. That with which he covered the sanctum sanctorum, at the same rate, would amount to above L. 230,000. *Job xlii. 11. and 12. +1 Kings vi. 20, 21, and 22. Job xxviii. 1 and 6; also 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.

We learn from the Book of Kings*, that the king brought by his ships from Ophir four hundred and twenty talents of gold, or about L. 190,800. The Book of Chronicles† represents the amount greater as four hundred and fifty talents, or L. 203,000, a difference of no great moment, and one which, perhaps, a collation of manuscripts might reconcile.

Without attempting to calculate the quantity of metallic treasure heaped up by Solomon, we may best describe it in the language of his day. We read that "his throne was of ivory, overlaid with the best gold; that all the drinking vessels were of gold; that all the vessels of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold: none were of silver, for that metal was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon ;" and, in short, "the king made silver to be as stones in Jerusalem †."

After this short intimation of the store of silver and gold accumulated by the Hebrew nation, it may be now proper to defer, to another branch of the subject, the consideration of the way in which such a store of the precious metals may probably have been collected under the reign of Solomon.

In proceeding from the sacred to the profane writers of antiquity, the reader is naturally in some degree surprised at the credulity, or at least apparent credulity, with which the most extraordinary and improbable tales are narrated. This is most remarkable in Herodotus and Diodorus, who are yet far from unworthy of confidence, where nothing supernatural is concerned. The Greek and Roman writers relate prodigies, which, at this day, we know not whether to attribute to their own credulity, or to that of the community for which they composed their works. In either case it does not render them utterly unworthy of credit, nor destroy their testimony in matter of history, of geography, of manners, of laws, or of government.

The history of all ancient nations is filled with prodigies which are no longer believed; but if, on that account, their authority on other subjects be discarded, it will become impossible to trace the progress of mankind through the several stages of society, from the most rude to the most civilized state. It is scarcely two centuries since in every part of Europe, with all the knowledge and civilization which had been imbibed, the

* 1 Kings x. 28.

+ Chronicles viii. 18.

Kings x.