The native Iberians knew of silver and gold ore in the hills of southern Spain, which the Phœnician merchant–sailors from Tyre taught them to utilize, giving them in exchange the products of their skill, and in course of time a great trade was carried on between distant Phœnicia on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean and Iberian “Tarshish” beyond its western end. Does not the prophet Ezekiel say, speaking of Phœnician Tyre, “Tarshish was thy merchant, by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches”? Tarshish, sometimes called by its Latin form, Tartessus, was the name applied, probably, to the region about the mouth of the river Guadalquivir, and perhaps to all that portion of Spain now known as Andalusia. Here the Phœnicians founded the city to–day known as Cadiz, and which they called “Gaddir,” or fortress, subsequently named Gadez by the Romans. Although the Phœnician sailors had long traded here—for the founding of cities is not the first occupation of explorers or traders—yet the probable beginning of Cadiz, about 1100 B.C., or three thousand years ago, is the first date that we can even approximately establish in Spanish chronology. Two centuries later, or about 900 B.C., Greek sailors arrived at the Catalonian coast of northeastern Spain, and there founded a colony which became prosperous through its traffic with the natives. The Greeks had already sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar, and declared that they had reached the extreme verge of the habitable globe. In token of this their great Hercules, or the Tyrian hero, had set up two monuments, one on the European and the other on the African coast, which even to–day are known as the “Pillars of Hercules.” There are other traditions referring to Hercules and his connection with Spain, for it is thought that in this country he sought the oxen of the triplebodied Geryones, as he was on his way back from Gadira (or Gaddir), when he killed the monster Cacus. And further, there is not much doubt that the famed “Hesperides” were located here, from which, as one of the Herculean “labours,” the son of Zeus was to fetch the golden apples. Hence it will be seen that the early traditions of Spain are very respectably connected! And, moreover, we should not forget that the Pillars of Hercules are perpetuated in the American “dollar mark” ($), the two upright columns, wreathed within a scroll, according to a fanciful legend.