ck up the threads of events and to weave
them into a record, the loom upon which the record was woven was made
of gold. One of the rivers that flowed through Eden also "compassed the
whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is
good."

"Tubal Cain was an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron."
Abraham and Jacob bought fields with money, and when Pharaoh sought to
make Joseph next in power to himself, he took the ring from his finger
and put it upon Joseph's finger; and he put a chain of gold about
Joseph's neck. Thus the grandchildren of Adam, in Holy Writ, were
artificers in brass and iron, and when civilization in Egypt began to
make an impression upon the world, its sovereigns had already discovered
the omnipotence of gold.

Assyria, that came next to be the concernment of mankind, had men who
could perfectly fuse gold and glass, and their work is still an object
of wonder to the world. Their queens wore raiment which was woven from
threads of gold.

The splendor of the Hebrew nation culminated when the roof of their
great temple was laid with beaten gold, and when all the magnificent
furnishings within the temple were wrought from gold and silver and
brass.

The invincible Greeks had chariots and javelins of iron, helmets of gold
and brass, and now as their tombs are rifled there is found beside where
their bones went back to dust the metal implements with which they
wrought, and the imperishable coins with which they carried on their
commerce.

The power of Rome came when her artisans learned how to fashion the short
sword, and her soldiers learned how to wield it, and her splendor came
when, through conquest, she brought under her dominion the gold fields
of Spain and Asia, and learned the power which money carries with it. Her
civilization began to recede when the money supply began to fall off, and
when it became too precious for the masses to possess it, then the race
degenerated until the men were no longer fit to be soldiers, the women
lost the grace to become the mothers of soldiers, and darkness settled
upon Europe.

England remained little more than a rendezvous for wild tribes until
her people learned mining and began the study of how to reduce the metals
which the mines supplied, and her advancement since can be rated exactly
by the progress she has made in bringing the metals into effective
forms and combinations. When first the rude Saxon acquired the art t