Silver mines are mentioned by Diodorus (i, 33), with those of gold, iron, and copper, in the island of Meroe, at the mouth of the Nile. But the chief supply of sil- ver in the ancient world appears to have been brought from Spain. Tlie mines of that country were celebrated (1 jMaec. viii, 3). Mount Orospeda, from which the Guadalquivir, the ancient Baltes, takes its rise, was for- merly called "the silver mountain," from the silver mines which were in it (Strabo, iii, p. 148). Tartessus, according to Strabo, was an ancient name of the river, which gave its name to the town that was built be- tween its two mouths. But the largest silver mines in Spain were in the neighborhood of Carthago Nova, from which, in the time of Polybius, the Roman government received 25,000 drachma daily. These, when Strabo wrote, had fallen into private hands, though most of the gold mines were public property (iii, p. 148). Near Cas- tulo there were lead mines containing silver, but in quantities so small as not to repay the cost of working. The process of separating the silver from the lead is abridged by Strabo from Polybius. The lumps of ore were first pounded, and then sifted through sieves into water. The sediment was again pounded, and again filtered, and after this process had been repeated five times the water was drawn off, the remainder of the ore melted, the lead poured away, and the silver left pure. If Tartessus be the Tarshish of Scripture, the metal workers of Spain in those days must have possessed the art of hammering silver into sheets, for we find in Jer. X, 9, "silver spread into plates is brought from Tar- shish, and gold from Uphaz."
We have no means of knowing whether the gold of Ophir was obtained from mines or from the washing of gold streams. Pliny (vi, 32), from Juba, describes the Uttus Ilammceum on the Persian Gulf as a place where gold mines existed, and in the same chapter alludes to the gold mines of the Sabaians. But in all probability the greater part of the gold which came into the hands of the Phoenicians and Hebre^vs was obtained from streams ; its great abundance seems to indicate this. At a very early period Jericho Avas a centre of commerce witli the East, and in the narrative of its capture we meet with gold iu the form of ingots (Josh.vii,21, A.V.
"wedge," lit. "tongue"), in which it was probably cast for the convenience of traffic. That which Achan took weighed twenty-five ounces.
As gold is seldom if ever found entirely free from sil- ver, the quantity of the latter varying from two per cent, to thirty per cent., it has been supposed that the ancient metallurgists were acquainted with some means of parting them, an operation performed in modern times by boiling the metal in nitric or sulphuric acid. To some process of this kind it has been imagined that reference is made in Prov. xvii, 3, " Thejiniiiff-pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold ;" and again in xxvii, 21. " If, for example," says Mr. Napier, " the term fn- ing-pot could refer to the vessel or pot in which the sil- ver is dissolved from the gold in parting, as it may be called with propriety, then these passages have a mean- ing in our modern practice" {Metals of the Bible, p. 28); but he admits that this is at best but plausible, and con- siilers that " the constant reference to certain qualities and kinds of gold in Scripture is a kind of presumptive proof that they were not in the habit of perfectly puri- fying or separating the gold from the silver."
A strong proof of the acquaintance possessed by the ancient Hebrews with the manipulation of metals is found by some in the destruction of the golden calf in the desert by Moses: "And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink" (Exod. xxxii, 20). As the highly malleable character of gold would render an op- eration like that which is described in the text almost impossible, an explanation has been sought in the sup- position that we have here an indication that Moses was a proficient in the process known in modern times as calcination. The object of calcination being to oxi- dize the metal subjected to the process, and gold not being affected by this treatment, the explanation can- not be admitted. M. Goguet (quoted in Wilkinson's .4 7;c. £^7. iii, 221) confidently asserts that the problem has been solved by the discover}' of an experienced chemist that " in the place of tartaric acid, which we employ, the Hebrew legislator used natron, which is common in the East." The gold so reduced and made into a draught is further said to have a most detestable taste. Goguet's solution appears to have been adopted without examination by more modern writers, but Mr, Napier ventured to question its correctness, and endeav- ored to trace it to its source. The only clew which he found was in a discovery by Stahll, a chemist of the 17th century, " that if one part gold, three parts potash, and three parts sulphur are heated together, a com- pound is formed which is partly soluble in water. If," he adds, "this be the discovery referred to, which I think very probable, it certainly has been made the most of by Bible critics" {Met. of the Bible, p. 49). The whole difficulty appears to have arisen from a desire to find too much in the text. The main object of the de- struction of the calf was to prove its worthlessness and to throw contempt upon idolatry, and all this might have been done without any refined chemical process like that referred to. The calf was first heated in the fire to destroy its shape, then beaten and broken up by liammering or filing into small pieces, which were thrown into the water, of which the people were made to drink as a symbolical act. "Moses threw the atoms into the • v/ater as an emblem of the perfect aimihilation of the calf, and he gave the Israelites that water to drink, not only to impress upon them the abomination and despic- able character of the image whicli they had made, but as a symbol of purification, to remove the object of the transgression by those very persons who had committed it" (Kalisch, Comm. on Exod. xxxii, 20). See Calf, Golden.