the gold brought to him by way of the Red Sea alone amounted to 3,330,000 lbs. weight of gold, or, in round numbers, about 160 millions sterling. The mines, therefore, that produced this enormous sum must have been equal in productiveness to those of Australia. Now the gross produce of the Australian mines from the first discovery of the gold-fields in 1851 to December 31, 1868, was 147,342,767 pounds sterling (see the "Gold Fields of Victoria," by R. Brough Smyth, p. 7). What could be got from the washing of auriferous sand in Arabia or Tofala to make up anything like such a sum as this, and à fortiori the still greater sum that reached Solomon? But the fact is, those who have written on the subject of the import of gold into Palestine had no idea of the now wellestablished fact that immense gold mines existed in the south of India. Thus Heeren, in his "Researches" (Asiatic Nations, vol. iii. P. 355), says: "The great quantity of the precious metals, particularly gold, possessed by India may well excite our attention and surprise. Though it had neither gold nor silver mines, it has always been celebrated, even in the earliest times, for its riches. The Rámáyana frequently mentions gold as in abundant circulation throughout the country, and the nuptial present made to Títá, we are told, consisted of a whole measure of gold pieces, and a vast quantity of the same precious metal in ingots. Golden chariots, golden trappings for elephants and horses, and golden bells, are also noticed as articles of luxury and magnificence." It will be shown presently how great a mistake Heeren committed in this assertion that India had neither gold nor silver mines, but let us first exhibit the series of proofs that gold, from whatever source, was present there in enormous quantities. In the passage last cited, reference is made to the Rámáyaṇa, which Wilson, in his latest view on the subject, supposed to have been written 300 B.C. But it refers to a time antecedent to that by several centuries, and certainly not later than the time of Solomon, so that there is the clearest proof that gold was abundant in India 1,000 years before the Christian

era.

Herodotus is the next authority to be cited, and we find him stating (Book III., c. 94) that "The Indians, who are more numerous than any other nations with which we are acquainted, paid a tribute exceeding that of every other people to wit, 360 talents of gold-dust." Euboic talents, taking the proportion of the value of gold to silver as 13 to 1, may be reckoned to equal in round numbers £1,200,000, an immense tribute for those days, the fifth century B.C. But the

remarkable point is that the tribute was paid in gold-dust, which could hardly have been collected except from gold-fields.

Coming now to the time of Pliny the elder, we find in his "Historia Naturalis," vi. 19, published 77 A.D.: "Of all the regions of India, the Dardenian country is most rich in gold mines, and the Selian in silver." It has been argued by some that the gold in India was accumulated by commerce, and a passage in Pliny, vi. 23, has been referred to in corroboration of that view, where it is said: Digna res est! nullo anno minus H. S. DL. imperii nostri exhauriente India, et merces remittente quæ apud nos centuplicato veneant." But Pliny had already spoken of the gold and silver mines of India, and not to insist on his having done so, we may well exclaim, what a commerce must that have been which would admit of the enormous exportation of gold which India sent to Solomon and as tribute to Persia, and subsequently yielded to its Afghan and Persian invaders! But in point of fact, there is nothing but the merest conjecture to show that the balance of trade, if it was from time to time in favour of India, as Pliny alleges in the passage just quoted, was paid in gold. It is more than probable that Rome paid the balance in silver, for Pliny himself tells us that 364 years after Rome was founded, the whole amount of gold there did not exceed 2,000 pounds, and that 671 years after it was founded, all the gold in the temples and shrines did not exceed 13,000 lbs. weight. Sylla, indeed, caused to be carried in his triumphal procession, 15,000 lbs. weight of gold, but up to the time that Pliny wrote, there never was that abundance of gold in Rome as could have supplied any considerable portion of those millions which we have seen India was pouring forth into other countries for a thousand years before the Christian era. Had vast sums been transmitted from Europe to India in gold, it is certain that there would have been continual discoveries of European gold coin in Hindustan. A few coins have, indeed, been found, but, taken altogether, their value amounts to something very considerable. Thus, "in 1787, a peasant, who was ploughing near Nellúr, found his plough stopped by some brickwork. On digging at the spot he discovered the remains of a small Hindu temple, and from beneath the masonry he took out a pot containing Roman coins and medals of the 2nd century A.D. These he sold as old gold; and the larger number were melted down, but about thirty were saved from the fusing operation. They were all of the purest gold, and many of them quite fresh and beautiful. Some, however, were defaced and perforated, as if they had been worn as ornaments. Most of them were of the time of

(See Murray's "Handbook of Trajan, Adrian, and Faustina." Madras," p. 49). It is also true that within the last fifty years Venetian sequins could be purchased in the bázárs of Western India, and were generally bought to be melted down and made But all these, and the Roman gold into ornaments for women.

coins which have been found in India, would certainly not make up the sum of £100,000. But why resort to wild and unreasonable conjectures to account for the abundance of gold in India when there is the most irrefragable testimony as to the source from which But first it came? This source we shall now proceed to point out. let us mention an Inscription which carries down to the 12th century A.D. proof of the vast quantities of gold existing in India. This Inscription was round the base of the great Temple at Tanjúr, and would, if written out in a straight line, extend perhaps the length of a mile, and the translation would fill a thick quarto volume. This Inscription, written in an obsolete and difficult character, has been deciphered by the learned Dr. Burnell, and in a little pamphlet printed by him on the 12th November, 1877, and called "The Great Temple of Tanjore," he thus speaks of it: "Nearly all these inscriptions-there are only two or three of a later date-belong to During the the reign of Vira-Cola, or from 1064 A.D. to 1114. reign of his father, Raja-rāja, the Cōla power recovered from the defeats it had suffered from the kings of the Deccan, and, beginning with a conquest of the Telugu sea-coast, it soon became an object of alarm to the kings of the North. Five of these formed a confederacy and were defeated. The Cōlas then conquered not only the whole of the Deccan, but invaded Bengal and Oude, and reduced the kingdom of Ceylon to a miserable state. The whole of India, which in the 11th century remained subject to Hindoo kings, then became subject to Vira-Cola, and he was, beyond doubt, the greatest Hindoo king known to history. As these inscriptions state, he did not spare the kings he conquered, and the enormous plunder which he gained became the chief means of building and endowing the great temples of the South. But his conquests cost the Hindoos a heavy price in the end; his kingdom soon fell to pieces, and by the middle of the next century it had become so insignificant that the Singhalese, who had already shaken off the Cōla yoke, invaded the Tamil country. The vanquished and plundered Hindoo kingdoms of the Deccan and the North fell an easy prey to the advancing Muhammadans, and in 1310 they conquered the whole Tamil country, and established a Muhammadan dynasty at Madura, Thus all the spoils of India which lasted for about sixty years.

came into the hands of the Muhammadans almost in a day, and were taken to Delhi. The full importance in Indian history of Vira-Cola's reign is only to be gathered from this inscription, but it contains other information also of great value. It proves, e.g., that in the 11th century gold was the most common precious metal in India, and stupendous quantities of it are mentioned here. Silver, on the other hand, is little mentioned, and it thus appears that the present state of things, which is exactly the reverse, was only brought about by the Portuguese in the 16th century. These inscriptions will also throw much light on the history and geography of India in the 11th century, of which we at present know so little and also on the constitution of the village communities, a subject that is now of deep interest to the students of customs and comparative jurisprudence."

We must wait until the translation of this extraordinary Inscription is published to ascertain whether the "stupendous quantities of gold" of which it speaks are declared to have been taken from the mines which exist in the country then subject to the Rájá who was the author of the Inscription. But even if no such mention should be found, there is the fact that the mines belonged to him, and that they were unquestionably being worked at the very time he caused the Inscription to be made. These mines are situated in the Wynád country, at the distance of about 200 miles to the N.W. of Tanjúr. The first thing to be noted with regard to these mines is that they have been extensively worked from a very ancient time. In 1832 Mr. Nicholson, an officer who was directed to make inquiries regarding them, reported that "the whole of the lower slopes of the Wynád hill ranges were mined throughout." It was subsequently ascertained (see the Madras Mail of June 17, 1875) that in the neighbourhood of Devala, in the same district, there was not a hillside to which water could be turned where the whole surface soil had not been washed away; every stream had been diverted from its course, and the bottom washed out. Every reef had been prospected, and the underlie, where easily got at, turned over. Mr. O. Pegler, a gentleman who had been sent to examine the mines, reported on November 22, 1877, that there appeared to be no limit of the extent of these workings both ancient and modern, and that he observed evidences in every direction both of mining on the reefs and washing on the hill slopes, generally beneath the western escarpment of the outcrop of the reefs. Mr. Pegler further mentions many places where he remarked traces of underground mining operations, and mostly carried out with skill and organised plan. In one place

he discovered a complete chain of pits extended on sets of triangles, comprising twenty-seven shafts in all, these workings being of some age, and no doubt of great depth, though as all old shafts are apt to fill up, their real depths are necessarily a matter of pure speculation. From all this he came to the conclusion, that a sound system of mining was followed in those days, and that, considering the absence of science and the want of application of improved machinery, the intelligence of the miners of that date must have been very great, and could only have been arrived at by years and generations of application to mining pursuits. These ancient miners sank rows of triple shafts along the reefs, one shaft for drawing up material, another for the ingress and egress of miners, and a third for ventilation and unwatering, serving as a sump, and always deeper than the workings, and the workings were carried in honeycombed chambers to each side of the line of pits. Without doubt the ancient miners used underground fire to break up the lodes or reefs : the third shaft here played an important part in supplying the necessary air for combustion, and the sump allowed the water to settle so as not to interfere with the burning. This underground burning is practised now in Germany and other countries. In the Wynád they evidently worked the chain of pits and line of operations up the slope so as to facilitate drainage and the ascension of smoke. After opening out sufficient ground they filled in the fuel, and lighting the fires, left the mines till combustion was completed, and they then found much of the reef broken up and easily removed. The pyrites contained in the veinstone would sustain combustion, On securing the and considerably tend to break up the stone. quartz at surface it was evidently spalled, that is, broken by the hand into small pieces, and the poor stone rejected, as is now done in Cornwall and elsewhere, and then again calcined in order to decompose the pyrites, and finally crushed, probably by means of large hard stones in cavities in stone bedding. It was then washed, and if mercury was procurable in those days, amalgamated with it. Evidently the inducement must have been great to have caused such extensive and well-organised works to be carried out. Now the antiquity of these workings is established in the first place by their skilful organisation, which could have been arrived at only after the experience of centuries, for there were no scientific books, no lectures, no School of Mines to instruct the workers of those days— nothing, in short, but the results of experience handed down by oral tradition to teach them. In the second place, the age of the workings is shown by their vast extent.