Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/117

 ore from observing the results of some such conflagration as that described by Posidonius.

Finally, we shall turn to Pliny the Elder for a moment. That industrious collector has given us a minute account of the various methods of mining carried on in Spain in his time, but as that is beside our present purpose I shall only quote a short passage, in which we get some interesting technical expressions relating to gold-mining. After detailing the method of washing soil containing gold by bringing streams of water to bear on it, just as we found the Salassi doing in the valley of the Doria, by which process he says 20,000 lbs. of gold were annually obtained in Asturia, Gallaecia, and Lusitania, he proceeds: "Gold obtained by shafting (arrugia) does not require refining, but is straight-*way pure. Nuggets of it are found in this way; likewise in pits nuggets are found exceeding ten pounds each. The Spaniards call them palacrae, others palacranae. The same people term the gold dust balux ." Here then we have an interesting group of technical terms, arrugia, palacra or palacrana and balux. The latter forms at once remind us of Strabo's palae ([Greek: palai]), and we can have little doubt that palacra and pala are simply dialectic variants, just as palacrana evidently was considered by Pliny to be a bye-form of palacra. Corssen has sought to find a Latin etymology for arrugia, connecting it with runco, ruga, but it is hardly possible to regard it as otherwise than Spanish, especially as this appears to be the only place where it is found. Balux (also baluca) is undoubtedly a native Iberian term. On Schrader's principles we might at once argue that as the technical words for gold-mining and for the different kinds of gold are native Spanish words, it is beyond doubt that the Spaniards were acquainted with gold and knew the art of working it before any foreign traders brought that metal to them. Without dogmatizing in this fashion and keeping to