THE ROMANCE OF GOLD.

Otago Witness, Issue 2375, 7 September 1899, Page 20

THE ROMANCE OF GOLD.

1 By H. P.

Where is Havilah, and whence flows the river Pison? Gold was found there 4004 years B.C. Abram counted his gold 3820 years ago, and more tban likely paid for a farm he bought, Machpelah, with some of it. What a unique place gold has held in the drama of the world's history. Gold has had a wonderful influence on the civilisation of the world. Mankind have known of, and used, gold from the very earliest ages. The Egyptians used gold as a token of exchange, in the very dawn of that misty civilisation that now lies buried deep "neath desert sands. We find to-day golden rings strung together, that thousands of years ago were used as current coin. Herodotus, the historian, tells us that gold was first coined in Lydia about 750 8.C., while other writers assert that to Egina belongs the honour of coining gold in the rounded s form known to us. The Persians used gold as a token of value in very remote times. In the ruins of Peru we meet with gold in the form of rough coins ; and in those mysterious forest depths of Yucatan we come across the same wonder-working discs of gold. Even in those dark and gloomy cayons of the mighty Colorado, in the burial urns of a departed race, we find golden tokens of a past civilisation. In Archaic Greece, cubes of gold were used at. tokens of value, and Professor Denton tells us that the artesian augur from the depths of Illinois, brought a rounded coin to the surface. The Toltecs, of Mexico, a highly civilised people, who in early ages inhabited that 'country, had a gold coinage. The Aztecs, a later race, who conquered the country, used quills of gold dust instead of coins. In China and India we know that gold has been used from a very remote period as a token of value. But if civilised man in widely-severed regions has used gold as a standard of value from time immemorial, what must be said of those nations and people who have used golden ornaments, trinkets, and works of art ; .have worshipped before gold images and bowed the knee before the golden calf ! How many rare and wonderful things, too, have been made of gold. The " Ark of the Covenant,"' or " Ark of Testimony," was a wonderful work. A box made of I iurc and beautiful woods, richly inlaid with j rare and strange gems, with a lid of solid I gold — a wonderful box, truly. This very i rare and precious box was used by the Isi raelites to hold the two tablets of the 1 sacred law — the commandments of the Lord. , It was lost during the Babylonish captivity. What a strange and wonderful influence, too, must have been exerted by the golden 1 god in the great Sun Temple of Beelbeck, with its many pointed crown and numerous points of blazing energy. More wonderful -3till must have been that wonder oi all the ages— the Temple of Jupiter, that ' cost millions of money, thousands of lives, and took 700 years to build. On£ can but

faintly imagine what effect the great golden god, frowning down from his pedestal of glittering marble, would have upon Mac humble worshipper in the chancel" below. Well might travellers from far and near flock to gaze in wonder upon the great glowing god image in THE TEMPLE OF BELUS, for had the news not spread far and wide that Queen Semiramis employed 2,000,000 men. to erect a fitting house to hold the wonderful image? It is said that the temple was surrounded by an immense wall having 100 brazen gates. What a wonderful golden altar, too, was that frowning down from the heights of Gibeon, which claimed the hearts^ndomtion of the wandering Jewi o f Palestine and held captive the learning of, . and is said to have given the gitt of wisdoa"> to. Solomon. But it ivas in that marvellous palace, in the lovely forests; of Lebanon, that gold in all its wild extravagance of barbaric splendour seemed to have reached the highest point of earthly folly. To leach the palace one had to pass through a cedai porch hung about with a thousand golden shields, within which King Solomon, the wise, sat fo deal out justice. If anything were wanting to tell us of the strange and mysterious influence that gold has exercised over the destiny of the huma-n race, we find it strikingly illustrated in the history of the Israelitish nation. Between ancient and moderately recent times, however, mankind seem to have put the torch of progress out and LIVED EOR AGES IN THE DARK. It was with the discovery of the new world that the lamp seems to have flared up with a strange new brightness, and gold once more began to excite the nations of the world. What a strange, weird sight it must have been to Cortes, when Montezuma allowed him to gaze down that long, glittering aisle, leading up to that glowing altar on which the Aztec god, covered with gold and girt about with shining golden serpents, rested in a chair of solid gold. We read in the history of Spanish America what a wild and excitable time .it wap that followed, and how men and nations became hunters after the gold of the new world. It was in this hunting race, and greed of gold, that the amazing sea power of England was laid down. But if the influence of gold, wide though it were, that was felt in the old world during the fifteenth and sixteenth centimes was great, I what must we think of that wide wave of excitement that swept over the world on lhe discovery of gold in California becoming known. !No previous wave of excitement of such extent had been known, and jno country had undergone such rapid 1 changes as took place on the Pacific slope in a, few short months, as the golden stream poured into the City of the Golden C4ate. Everything, even life itself, seemed changed", and a Continent was soon transformed into a busy hive of industry. On the discovery of gold in Australia came those wonderworking days of '51. The influence exerted on the civilisation of the world by those great gold discoveries — who can gauge it? Who can tell where it will end? It is only when we look back that we can dimly realise the changes that have taken place. In ten 'short years, from '51 to '61, Australia exported a mass of gold 10ft at the base and 45ft high! California and Australia poured into the world's treasury in ten years, £260,000,000 of gold. Just 'imagine the enormous amount of human labour required to produce that hugh sum. Picture to your mind's eye the hopes and fears, the anxiety and dread, the suffering [ and sorrow and death that lie buried unJ der that great mass y of gold. Men, in i poverty to-day, have toiled on and suffered i untold hardships and privations, in the hope of being rich to-morrow. When we 1 think of those huge nuggets of gold that have been unearthed, we are constrained to admit that Fortune does sometimes follow the brave. The biggest piece of gold ever found, so far as I am aware, was taken from Byer and Hartman's claim, Hillend, N.S.W., in '72. In height it was 4ft 9in, '■ width 3ft 2in, with an average thickness of 1 4in — worth £29,600. A nice chunk, truly. BIG NUGGETS. Many large nuggets of gold have been , found in different parts of the world, but i Australia seems to claim the most ot , t them. (To be continued.)