The earliest detailed record of a commercial transaction in commodities, is the purchase by Abraham of the field and cave in Hebron, more than 2000 years before Christ. It is narrated at length in Genesis xxiii. Long before this purchase, however, it is said of Abraham that he "went up out of Egypt very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold." This formal sale to him in Hebron of the field and cave of Machpelah is in all its parts instructive to us, and full of signs of the drift of those times. It was "_in the audience of the sons of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city, that the field and the cave were made sure unto him for a possession. And Abraham weighed unto Ephron the silver which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant._" In the lack of written and recorded deeds to land-parcels, as we have them now, the sale of them was "_made sure_" before the faces of living men, who would tell the truth and pass on the word. The market-place in those days was "_at the gate of the city_," where the judges also used to hold their courts, the place most frequented of all, and sales were made "_before all that went in_" thither; "_in the audience of the sons of Heth_" was the silver weighed out, and the field made sure in exchange. Then there were "merchants" as a class; silver passed by weight rather than by tale, although it had already passed beyond a mere commodity and had become money, "_current money with the merchant_"; and even at this day the Bank of England takes in and pays out gold and silver by balance rather than by count, though they be in coined money: it is the more accurate method. The author of the book of Job, believed to be of great antiquity, and certainly true to nature and to fact in its essential parts, knew very well the modes in which the ancient mines were wrought, and the worth of the commodities extracted:-- "Truly there is a vein for silver, And a place for gold, which men refine. Iron is obtained from earth, And stone is melted into copper. Man putteth an end to darkness; He searcheth to the lowest depths For the stone of darkness and the shadow of death. From the place where they dwell they open a shaft; Forgotten by the feet, They hang down, they swing away from men. The earth, out of which cometh bread, Is torn up underneath, as it were by fire. Her stones are the place of sapphires, And she hath clods of gold for man. The path thereto no bird knoweth, And the vulture's eye hath not seen it; The fierce wild beast hath not trodden it; The lion hath not passed over it. Man layeth his hand upon the rock; He upturneth mountains from their roots; He cleaveth out streams in the rocks, And his eye seeth every precious thing; He bindeth up the streams, that they trickle not, And bringeth hidden things to light."