From this it is easy to construct the Babylonian _silver_ system, which was employed in Lydia and in the Persian empire. 1 shekel = 169 grs. 50 shekels = 1 mina = 7450, 60 minae = 1 talent 447000. From the double gold shekel was formed another silver standard known as the _Phoenician_. Gold being to silver as 13:1, 1 double shekel of 260 grs. = 3380 grs. silver, 3380 grs. silver = 15 shekels of 225·3 grs. As this silver standard is found in the same area as the double gold shekel, I have thought it best to follow the usual derivation, but at the same time it is worth pointing out that it may have been gained directly from the light shekel. The light shekel (which in the form of coined money appears either as the gold of Croesus, or the Daric), in the case of the Babylonian system was made equal to ten silver didrachms, or 20 drachms known under the name of Sigli; it likewise is equal in value to 15 Phoenician didrachms of 112·6 grs. Thus, whilst in one region they obtained a silver unit, ten of which would be an equivalent to the gold unit, in another they formed a silver unit, 15 of which would be equivalent to the same gold unit of 130 grs. In each case a number convenient for purposes of exchange was substituted for the extremely unmanageable number 13 (or still more intractable 13·3) of the older system, according to which silver was made into ingots of the same size as those of gold. These now are the systems on which depended all traffic and currency of the precious metals throughout Western Asia for many centuries. I have been compelled in the statement of the two silver systems to anticipate one step in the growth of the fully developed weight system by speaking of the _Talent_. We have seen that the mina of silver, like that of gold, contains only 50 shekels, thus evidently having likewise been developed before the full elaboration of the Chaldaean system of numeration, or at least before the application of that system to their metric standards. But when we come to deal with the talent we find that in every case alike, whether it be the gold, silver, or royal talent of commerce, the talent invariably consists of _sixty_ minae. From this we may with safety infer that it was at a period posterior to the invention of the sexagesimal method that the _Talent_ was added to the gold and silver systems. When we turn to the royal system (both light and heavy), we find that the mina consists of _sixty_ shekels, just as the talent consists of 60 minae, and consequently we are constrained to believe that this royal system was fixed at a date long after the growth of the gold and silver _minae_, and when the sexagesimal system had now complete sway. We have already seen good reason for considering the _royal_ talent to be essentially a mercantile unit. It certainly was not used for gold or silver. Corn was not sold by weight, and so in all probability it was