96 MINES IN CHAP. II. 



fined to the precious metals, for in process of 

 time, as the colonists became amalgamated with 

 the aborigines, and a new race of people had been 

 thereby formed, the soil was brought into a state 

 of productive cultivation. Other substances 

 were raised, and contributed to increase the value 

 of the intercourse, at first to the Phoenicians, and 

 at length to the Romans. These productions 

 are recounted by Strabo, and consisted of corn, 

 wine, oil, wax, fine wool, and salted fish. At 

 that period the wool of Spain had attained such 

 a high value that a ram of the best flock, when 

 wanted to improve the Roman breed, according 

 to that author, was valued at a talent l . 



The early commerce of the Phoenicians, as 

 well as of the Carthaginians, with Spain, had been 

 conducted by mere barter. They exchanged 

 the commodities they carried to Spain for those 

 of that country, which were in most request in 

 the several other parts of the world with which 

 they traded. Tyre was however the centre to 

 which all kinds of goods were conveyed, and 

 from which they were again distributed in the 

 districts where each was demanded. The vast 

 gain thus acquired must have left a constantly 

 increasing surplus of wealth, and especially of 

 the most compendious kind of wealth, the pre- 

 cious metals, in that metropolis of the ancient 

 commercial world. 



1 Strabo, book iii. cap. 1. 



