remarkable for its beauty, and is ten times heavier than water. It does
not appear to have been in use before the deluge. Moses does not allude
to it before that event, but mentions only brass and iron; but in
Abraham's time it had become common, and traffic was carried on with it,
and its value was eight to one of gold. "He was rich in silver and gold,
and bought a sepulchre for his wife Sarah for four hundred shekels of
silver" ($250.) It was not coined, but circulated only in bars or
ingots, and was always weighed. Silver usually takes precedence in the
Scriptures, whenever the two metals are mentioned conjunctively. "Silver
and gold have I none," said Peter to the importunate beggar, "but such
as I have, I give unto thee." Silver is first mentioned in Genesis
xxiii: 15; but where it was first found is unknown to us.

Silver was extremely abundant in ancient times. "And Solomon made
silver to be in Jerusalem as stones." (I Kings x: 27.) "Cyrus heaped up
silver as the dust." (Zacariah ix: 3.) In the earliest times the Greeks
obtained silver from the Phoceans and Laurians. The chief mines were in
Siphnos, Thessaly, and Attica. In the latter country the silver mines
of Laurion furnished an abundant supply, and were generally regarded
as the chief source of the wealth of Athens. They ceased to be worked
in the second century of the Christian Era. At the period B.C. 500,
the relative value of silver to gold was eighteen to one. The Romans
obtained most of their silver from the very rich mines of Spain, which
had previously been worked by the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, and
which, though abandoned for those of Mexico, are still not exhausted.
The most important use for silver, among the Greeks, was for money.
At Rome, on the contrary, silver was not coined until B.C. 260.

Silver, as regards its mines, is represented in every portion of our
planet. The richest silver mine in the world is Potosi; it is situated