In the _Miscellanea Scotica_, printed in 1710, various notices of the ancient working of gold in Scotland occur. Pieces of gold, mixed with spar and other substances, weighing thirty ounces, are described among the fruits of the Laughain and Phinland mines. See also Pennant's Tour, App. x. vol. iii. for a curious account "of the gold mines of Scotland." The introduction of the metals into southern Europe in ancient times appears to have borne no analogy to that in the north. Gold was not used in the Roman coinage till B.C. 207, sixty-two years after the adoption of a silver coinage. So, too, in the records of sacred history, Abraham weighed unto Ephron 400 shekels of silver, current money with the merchant. The earliest notice of gold used otherwise than for jewels and ornaments only occurs in the reign of David, when he purchased the threshing-floor of Ornan for 600 shekels of gold by weight; 1 Chron. xxi. 25. Compare this with 2 Samuel xxiv. 24. [248] Regist. de Dunferm. p. 16. [249] Miscel. Scot., Napier of Merchiston, p. 228. [250] "Account of the late discovery of native gold in Ireland." Philosoph. Transac. London, 1796, p. 34. [251] Ibid. p. 38. "A Mineralogical Account of the native gold lately discovered in Ireland," by Abraham Mills, Esq. [252] Philosoph. Transac. London, 1796, p. 43. [253] Ibid. p. 45. [254] Wayland Smith, by W. S. Singer, from the French of Depping and Michel, Preface. [255] Ibid. p. lxxvi. [256] Humboldt's Researches, vol. i. p. 94. [257] Archæologia, vol. xxxii. p. 321. [258] MS. de la Bib. Roy. Supplem. Française, No. 540, fol. 33. Singer's Wayland Smith, p. lvii. [259] Singer's Wayland Smith, p. lxx. [260] _Die Hieroglyphen in dem Mythus des Æsculapius._ Meiningen, 1819. Singer, p. lxx. [261] _Vide_ Thomas Wright on the Legend of Weland the Smith. _Archæologia_, vol. xxxii. p. 315. Also his article on Alfred, in the _Biographia Literaria_ of the Royal Society of Literature regarding the authorship of this metrical version. [262] Logan's Scottish Gael, vol. ii. p. 195. [263] Macculloch's Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 327. [264] Bishop Lesley's Hist. Bannatyne Club. 4to. Edinburgh, 1830. P. 76. CHAPTER II. THE METALLURGIC TRANSITION.