CHAP. II. 



SPAIN. 8Q 



and Chemnitz had been worked near one thou- 

 sand years. 



If the mines of Sweden and of Norway yielded 

 any silver or gold at that remote period, which 

 may perhaps be presumed from what has been 

 found by opening tumuli, as before related, we 

 have no knowledge of the nature or the quan- 

 tity of the products. 



There will occur in a future stage of this in- 

 quiry an opportunity of entering more particu- 

 larly into the state of the mines of Gaul, Hun- 

 gary, and the northern kingdoms. As they were 

 little productive before the time of Augustus, 

 the accounts of them will be more appropriate 

 at a later period. 



The country most productive of the precious Spain. 

 metals, but especially of silver, in very remote 

 ages, was the Spanish peninsula. It had been 

 visited and colonized both by the Phoenicians 

 and by the refugees of that people, who had 

 founded establishments at Utica and at Carthage 

 on the shores of Africa, and both had early 

 drawn supplies of silver from it. The oldest no- 

 tices of it are to be found in the sacred writings. 

 Solomon sent a commercial expedition there. 

 Isaiah, who is supposed to have written about 

 600 years before Christ, asks the question 

 " Who are they that fly as a cloud, and as the 

 doves to their windows ?" and replies, " The 

 ships of Tarshish, to bring thy sons from afar, 



