Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/97

 liquid, flows down along the sloping board, but the part that contains the gold adheres to the board owing to its weight. Repeating this process frequently at first with their hands they gently rub it, but after this pressing it lightly with delicate sponges they take up by these means the soft and earthy part until the gold-dust is left in a state of purity.

"Finally other craftsmen, taking over the collected gold by measure and weight, put it into earthenware pots, and in proportion to the amount they put in a piece of lead and lumps of salt and furthermore a small quantity of tin, and they add barley bran. Then having made a well-fitted cover and having laboriously smeared it over with mud, they bake it in kilns for five days and as many nights continuously. Then after letting it cool, they find none of the other things in the vessels, but get the gold in a pure state with but a slight reduction in quantity. With so many and so great sufferings is the production of gold at the frontiers of Egypt completed. For Nature herself makes it plain, I think, that gold is produced with toil, is guarded with difficulty, is most eagerly sought for, and is enjoyed with mixed pleasure and pain. The discovery of these mines is of very ancient date, inasmuch as it was made known by the ancient kings ."

Such then is the vivid picture drawn by the humane Diodorus of the horrible torments of the unhappy bondsmen who worked these famous mines, sufferings only to be paralleled by the miseries endured by the miners in Spain under Roman rule, by the Indians in the mines of Peru under the yoke of the Spaniard, and by the helpless sufferers under Muscovite cruelty who at this hour endure a living death in the mines of Siberia.

For our immediate purpose it is interesting to notice that the Egyptians from a far back time obtained an abundant supply of gold from the confines of their own territory, and doubtless drew a further supply from those rich gold districts along the Red Sea of which we have just spoken.

Whilst in the latter case we had a most instructive instance of the first attempts to utilize the metals made by men, so in