After Stating That The Soil Of Arabia
Was, As It Were, Impregnated With Gold, And That Lumps Of Pure Gold Were
Found There From The Size Of An Olive To That Of A Nut, He Adds, That Iron
Was Twice, And Silver Ten Times, The Value Of Gold.
If he is accurate in
the proportionate values which he respectively assigns to these metals, it
proves the very
Great abundance of gold; since, in most of the nations of
antiquity, the values of gold and silver were the reverse of what they were
in Arabia, gold being ten times the value of silver. The comparative high
value of iron to gold is still more extraordinary, and seems to indicate
not only a great abundance of the latter metal, but also a great scarcity
of the former, or a very great demand for it in consequence of the extended
and improved state of those arts and manufactures in which iron is an
essential requisite, and which indicate an advanced degree of knowledge and
civilization. We are not aware of a similar fact, with respect to the
proportionate value of iron and silver, being recorded of any other nation
of antiquity. It is not to be supposed, however, that the cheapness of
gold, measured by iron and silver, could long continue in Arabia, unless we
believe that their intercourse with other nations was very limited; because
a regular and extensive intercourse would soon assimilate, in a great
degree at least, the value of gold measured by iron and silver, as it
existed in Arabia, to its value, as measured by the same metals in those
countries with which Arabia traded.
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