Gold, therefore, could hardly fail to attract the attention of the very first inhabitants of the globe; its beauty, its malleability, its indestructibility, would give it value: accident would soon discover the possibility of melting it by heat, and thus of reducing the grains or small pieces of it found on the surface of the earth into one large mass. It would be speedily made into ornaments and utensils of various kinds, and thus gradually would come into common use. This we find to have occurred in America, when it was discovered by Columbus. The inhabitants of the tropical parts of that vast continent were familiarly acquainted with gold; and in Mexico and Peru it existed in great abundance; indeed the natives of these countries seem to have been acquainted with no other metal, or at least no other metal was brought into such general use, except silver, which in Peru was, it is true, still more common than gold. Gold, then, was probably the first metal with which man became acquainted; and that knowledge must have preceded the commencement of history, since it is mentioned as a common and familiar substance in the Book of Genesis, the oldest book in existence, of the authenticity of which we possess sufficient evidence. The period of leading the children of Israel out of Egypt by Moses, is generally fixed to have been one thousand six hundred and forty-eight years before the commencement of the Christian era. So early, then, we are certain, that not only gold, but the other six malleable metals known to the ancients, were familiar to the inhabitants of Egypt. The Greeks ascribe the discovery of gold to the earliest of their heroes. According to Pliny, it was discovered on Mount Pangæus by Cadmus, the Phœnician: but Cadmus’s voyage into Greece was nearly coeval with the exit of the Israelites out of Egypt, at which time we learn from Moses that gold was in common use in Egypt. All that can be meant, then, is, that Cadmus first discovered gold in Greece; not that he made mankind first acquainted with it. Others say that Thoas and Eaclis, or Sol, the son of Oceanus, first found gold in Panchaia. Thoas was a contemporary of the heroes of the Trojan war, or at least was posterior to the Argonautic expedition, and consequently long posterior to Moses and the departure of the children of Israel from Egypt. 2. Silver also was not only familiarly known to the Egyptians in the time of Moses, but, as we learn from Genesis, was coined into money before Joseph was set over the land of Egypt by Pharaoh, which happened one thousand eight hundred and seventy-two years before the commencement of the Christian era, and consequently two hundred and twenty-four years before the departure of the children of Israel out of Egypt.