Frazer and Johnson — On Five Gold Fibnlce. 779 



recent finds of California, Australia, and the Cape, melted up again 

 and again almost all the gold issues of our early English kings, with 

 rare exceptions now principally to be found in the cabinets of 

 Numismatists. 



I know it will be considered by some an errot if I say I do not 

 believe that our Irish gold ornaments were all, or even in great part, 

 obtained from native Irish gold. If we once had in Ireland such very 

 productive gold mines or river washings that they could yield gold 

 in great quantities, how did the memory of these facts die out from 

 men's minds, to be rediscovered late in the last century in the Co. 

 WicMow (for as to any other alleged gold districts they are not worth 

 speculating about) ? Surely our Annals ought to contain numerous 

 traditions or undoubted records of these vast mineral treasures if they 

 were ever in existence. 



We have, I admit, a record of a solitary worker in gold in the 

 Airthir Liffe, who worked for one of the earlier Milesian chiefs. His 

 presence in the district through which our river Liffey ran, has been 

 conjectured to be due to his using this "Wicklow gold. It may be, 

 with more probability, ascribed to the district affording suitable sup- 

 plies of charcoal. It would recjuire many skilled workmen, and many 

 large manufacturing establishments, to turn out the gold ornaments 

 found in Ireland, whether the metal was got from Wicklow gold 

 or foreign sources. This would require a far more exhaustive 

 inquiry than is possible in the present Paper. It may, however, prove 

 of some interest to those desirous of following up the subject, if I 

 suggest one result of modem geographical studies. 



Of late years, amongst other important sources of gold in formej' 

 ages, attention is called to the great quantities afforded by Eastern 

 Russia. For many centuries past it has supplied the world with vast 

 treasures, and the fabulous wealth of Colchis, the land of the Golden 

 Fleece, is well known. Our earlier Irish colonists were, besides 

 Fomorians, the De Danaans, Milesian, and Celtic tribes. It may 

 prove merely a coincidence, still, Greek races, Danaans and Mile- 

 sians — the latter of Ionian origin, coming from Caiia — were primitive 

 settlers and colonists in that rich gold land of Colchis, and founded 

 cities there. In subsequent ages they were driven out by other races, 

 and are in part, at least, the parents of our very mixed Irish people. 

 On the north-west of the Euxine also, for a time, settled the Cymbri, 

 before they travelled northwards and westwards, expelled by succeed- 

 ing invaders, the alleged ancestors of the Celtic people, and perhaps 

 of the Gauls. Tradition tells, also, of gold reaching Ireland from 



