t MINES IN GHAP. if. 



rous authorities from which Herodotus, Dio- 

 dorus, Strabo, and Pliny derived their informa- 

 tion were now accessible to our inquiries. 



It seems, however, highly probable, that the 

 greater portion of the^gold which had been col- 

 lected by the Greeks in the most remote ages 

 had been acquired by washing the sands. It 

 was the most natural and the only easy manner 

 in which the rude inhabitants could obtain it ; 

 and though the quantity procured by the whole 

 number that worked at it may have been very 

 small, yet the chance of great success must have 

 been seductive to many in the savage state ; as 

 it has been remarked that in that stage of society 

 there is always a strong propensity to all games 

 of hazard. The far greater part, however col- 

 lected, would be carefully preserved and trans- 

 mitted to posterity; and though the product of 

 each year might appear insignificant, yet in the 

 course of many successive centuries, when all 

 was ultimately collected on one point, as in a 

 focus, at Rome, it renders the account of the 

 vast metallic wealth in that seat of empire by 

 no means improbable. 



Italy. It is remarked by Pliny, " that Italy yields to 

 no country in abundance of mines of all the 

 several kinds of metals ; but it is forbidden to 

 dig any of them by an ancient law of the senate, 

 which expressly commands that the mines of 



