copper, rather than by other commodities: it was the practice even to note down in invoices or in the official receipts, alongside the products or manufactured articles with which payments were made, the value of the same in weighed metal.** * The quantity of gold in ingots or rings, mentioned in the _Annals of Tkutmosis III._, represents altogether a weight of nearly a ton and a quarter, or in value some L140,000 of our money. And this is far from being the whole of the metal obtained from the enemy, for a large portion of the inscription has disappeared, and the unrecorded amount might be taken, without much risk of error, at as much as that of which we have evidence--say, some two and a half tons, which Thutmosis had received or brought back between the years XXIII. and XLII. of his reign--an estimation rather under than over the reality. These figures, moreover, take no account of the vessels and statues, or of the furniture and arms plated with gold. Silver was not received in such large quantities, but it was of great value, and the like may be said of copper and lead. * The facts justifying this position were observed and put together for the first time by Chabas: a translation is given in his memoir of a register of the XXth or XXIst dynasty, which gives the price of butcher's meat, both in gold and silver, at this date. Fresh examples have been since collected by Spiegelberg, who has succeeded in drawing up a kind of tariff for the period between the XVIIIth and XXth dynasties. This custom, although not yet widely extended, placed at the disposal of trade enormous masses of metal, which were preserved in the form of ingots or bricks, except the portion which went to the manufacture of rings, jewellery, or valuable vessels.* * There are depicted on the monuments bags or heaps of gold dust, ingots in the shape of bricks, rings, and vases, arranged alongside each other.