78 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Diihlin Society. 



Cunningham's researches place it also in the Grulf of Cambay. 

 The name Ophir, or Sophir, he identifies with Sauvira, a name 

 derived from that of the ber-tree {Zizyphus jujuha), which is 

 plentiful in that region.^ 



Since gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks are productions 

 of India — and the Hebrew name for the last is derived from tukki, 

 an Indian word — there is internal evidence that Ophir was situated 

 in that country. It is not likely to have been in the more Eastern, 

 Burmese, or Malayan countries, where, it must be admitted, the 

 same commodities might have been obtained.^ 



■ Passing the notices of precious stones to be found in the 

 biblical books written during the course of the next five centuries, 

 we find that Herodotus (fifth century b.c.) gives us some insight 

 into the nature and extent of certain Indian mineral productions. • 

 Babylon obtained precious stones and dogs (probably Thibetan 

 mastiffs) from India.^ 



In the enumeration of the nations and tribes which paid tribute 

 to the Persian monarch, Darius, the Indians alone, we are told, 

 paid in gold, all the others paying in silver. The amount of this 

 gold was 360 Euboeic talents = £1,290,000. Herodotus pointedly, 

 moreover, speaks of India as .being " rich in gold " ; * and he 

 relates the famous and widespread fable of the gold-digging ants, 

 the origin of which has been fully ascertained, as I have already 

 described in these pages.^ I shall only add now that the " horns 

 of the gold- digging ants," referred to by Pliny and others, were, 

 probably, simply samples of the ordinary pickaxes used by the 

 miners. In Ladakh, and, probably, also in Thibet, these imple- 

 ments are made of the horns of wild sheep, mounted on handles 

 of wood. 



1 Anc. Geog. of India, pp. 496-7 ; and 560-62. 



2 Mr. Eastwick estimates that the gold which reached Solomon by way of the 

 Red Sea amounted to 3,330,000 lbs. in weight, or 160 millions sterling. In his 

 Paper entitled, "Gold in India," it may be .added, he is inclined to locate 

 Ophir in the Malabar country, in the neighbourhood of the gold-bearing regions of 

 ■Southern India. 



3 Herodotus, i., 192. « /. c. iii. 106. 



^ These Proceedings for 1880. The fable has been shown by Sir Henry Eawlinson 

 and Dr. Schiern to have originated in the peculiar customs of the Thibetan gold miners, 

 which would appear to be the same at present as they were in the time of Herodotus. 

 The name "Ant" gold was possibly first given to the fragments of gold dust brought 

 from Thibet on account of their shape and size. 



