april — sept. 1859.] Ancient and Modem times. 79 



£8,500,000, (understated at £6,000,000 by Adam Smith.) The 

 demand increasing in consequence of the exigencies of European 

 war, in 1803 the supply amounted to £10,000,000, of which 

 £9,000,000 came from the Spanish colonies. 



It is easy to conceive the effect produced on prices all over the 

 world by this enormous increase of the precious metals, the uni- 

 versal and rapid rise of nominal value : and again its subsequent 

 fall, to which I have before alluded, when the revolutions checked 

 supply, demand continuing unabated. 



Silver appears to have been a more favored material for a 

 currency than gold. In most countries its use as a medium of ex- 

 change preceded that of gold by many years. Of it alone, for 

 centuries, consisted the money of Palestine and of Greece. I have 

 mentioned that in Rome too, where it was not the original me- 

 dium of exchange it was coined more than half a century earlier 

 than gold. Amongst the Northern peoples who overturned the 

 Roman Empire it formed the only material of currency ; and from 

 them it was adopted by England and the modern continental States. 

 In the East, as we know, it continues to the present day to be the 

 principal ; in some places the sole medium of exchange. 



In the Hebrew Scriptures silver money is mentioned at a very 

 early period ; in many passages, ceseph literally silver is used to 

 express money in general.) I have before given an instance from 

 the book of Job. I have also quoted Gen. xx. 16, where Abime- 

 lech gives Abraham " a thousand [pieces] of silver." " Pieces" 

 is inserted by the translators. The word " shekel" understood by 

 the Jews in this passage and elsewhere when no coin is named,* 

 itself occurs for the first time in Gen. xxiii. 15 ; 400 shekels of 

 silver are the price of the burying place which Abraham buys. 



As to what may have been the style of execution of these she- 

 kels — or how far they may have corresponded with our ideas of 

 * coin' — I have no information. The Jews tell us that Mordecai, 

 David, Joshua, and Abraham issued coins. In support of the last 

 part of the story, on the truth of which an a fortiori argument 



* The " threescore and ten [pieces] of silver" in Judges ix. 4, are by 

 some commentators supposed to be pounds weight : for no other reason 

 than that the sum seems too small if shekels be understood. 



