Io6 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



by long trains of horses or camels, occupying days, or even weeks 

 on a journey which is now done in as many hours ; when the eastern 

 trade was solely in the hands of the Arabians and Egyptians, and 

 the Phoenician tugged laboriously at the oar in his westward journey- 

 ings toward the land of tin. 



Still less likely are we to look even farther back to the time 

 when the useful horse, and the equally useful camel were unknown 

 in the work of men ; where the common carrier consisted solely of 

 the manufacturer and the seller ; when labor knew no divisions — 

 the maker being also the vendor, carrying his wares himself from 

 place to place, from tribe to tribe, giving what he had for what he 

 could get in return, and doubtless often surrendering his wares to a 

 stronger and less scrupulous rival, who considered " might right," 

 and who effectually closed up the opposition, and the weaker mer. 

 chant's mouth, by a process which recognized the fact that " dead 

 men tell no tales." 



As we daily handle the coins and moneys of the land we may 

 be residing in or passing through, we probably never for a moment 

 think of the times long past wh^n paper was not, nor had coins 

 themselves even been thought of; when all commerce was carried 

 on by barter, and when even the precious metals were unknown for 

 any other purpose than that of ornament. Coinage is a compara- 

 tively modern invention, being first introduced by the Lydians 

 about 678 B. C. Strange though it may appear, the Assyrians had 

 no knowledge of coin, and the earlier Egyptians, with all their 

 exhaustive and highly finished civil and religious polity, do not 

 appear to have had any higher commercial facilities than barter. 



Yet there were times much earlier than these; times long 

 before the spices of the East, the tin of the West, or even the gold 

 of Ophir were considered of any mercantile value ; and yet, even 

 then, the love or necessity of trade was in existence. The unwritten 

 history of our race as read by archaeologists, place before us unmis- 

 takeable evidences of the ancient inhabitants of Europe carrying on 

 a species of commerce in stone for implements and shells for the 

 manufacture of ornaments, and also in later times of copper and 

 tin for the manufacture of bronze. Explorations in the caverns of 

 central France have disclosed traces of the Flint-folks belonging to 

 an era estimated by some scientific chronologists as antedating our 



