until death, the only friend they had to look to, came to end their sufferings. Strabo, the stoic, is silent on this point, which here, as in Egypt, so strongly moved the heart of Diodorus. The story of the discovery of silver by the burning of the woods at first savours of the mythical, but there is really good reason for believing that there is in it a solid nucleus of truth. Tin was unknown in Sumatra until in 1710[148] it was discovered by the accidental burning down of a house (an incident which recalls Charles Lamb’s delightful account of the discovery of Roast Pig). It is highly probable that it was owing to some such accident that men first became acquainted with silver, as that metal is rarely if ever found native. It may well be therefore that mankind has learned the art of smelting metalliferous ore from observing the results of some such conflagration as that described by Posidonius. Finally, we shall turn to Pliny the Elder for a moment. That industrious collector has given us a minute account of the various methods of mining carried on in Spain in his time, but as that is beside our present purpose I shall only quote a short passage, in which we get some interesting technical expressions relating to gold-mining. After detailing the method of washing soil containing gold by bringing streams of water to bear on it, just as we found the Salassi doing in the valley of the Doria, by which process he says 20,000 lbs. of gold were annually obtained in Asturia, Gallaecia, and Lusitania, he proceeds: “Gold obtained by shafting (_arrugia_) does not require refining, but is straightway pure. Nuggets of it are found in this way; likewise in pits nuggets are found exceeding ten pounds each. The Spaniards call them _palacrae_, others _palacranae_. The same people term the gold dust _balux_[149].” Here then we have an interesting group of technical terms, _arrugia_, _palacra_ or _palacrana_ and _balux_. The latter forms at once remind us of Strabo’s _palae_ (πάλαι), and we can have little doubt that _palacra_ and _pala_ are simply dialectic variants, just as _palacrana_ evidently was considered by Pliny to be a bye-form of _palacra_. Corssen has sought to find a Latin etymology for _arrugia_, connecting it with _runco_, _ruga_, but it is hardly possible to regard it as otherwise than Spanish, especially as this appears to be the only place where it is found. _Balux_ (also _baluca_) is undoubtedly a native Iberian term. On Schrader’s principles we might at once argue that as the technical words for gold-mining and for the different kinds of gold are native Spanish words, it is beyond doubt that the Spaniards were acquainted with gold and knew the art of working it before any foreign traders brought that metal to them. Without dogmatizing in this fashion and keeping to our more cautious principles we may say that the evidence of those words is strongly in favour of such a conclusion, unless a