THE MINERAL KINGDOM.


The splendor of the world is due to mining and to the perfectness of
man's ability to work the minerals which the mines supply. The fields of
the world give men food; with food furnished, a few souls turn to the
contemplation of higher things; but no grand civilization ever came to an
agricultural people until their intellects were quickened by something
beyond their usual occupation.

How man first emerged from utter barbarism is a story that is lost, but
when history first began to pick up the threads of events and to weave
them into a record, the loom upon which the record was woven was made
of gold. One of the rivers that flowed through Eden also "compassed the
whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is
good."

"Tubal Cain was an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron."
Abraham and Jacob bought fields with money, and when Pharaoh sought to
make Joseph next in power to himself, he took the ring from his finger
and put it upon Joseph's finger; and he put a chain of gold about
Joseph's neck. Thus the grandchildren of Adam, in Holy Writ, were
artificers in brass and iron, and when civilization in Egypt began to
make an impression upon the world, its sovereigns had already discovered
the omnipotence of gold.

Assyria, that came next to be the concernment of mankind, had men who
could perfectly fuse gold and glass, and their work is still an object
of wonder to the world. Their queens wore raiment which was woven from