Without doubt one of the first uses to which the art of weighing was applied was that of testing the amount of wool given to female slaves[167], or in this case perhaps to a freed woman, to make sure that they would return all the wool when spun into yarn, and not purloin any portion for themselves. Thus in the older Latin writers we constantly find allusions to the _pensum_ (_pendo_ = to weigh), the portion of wool _weighed_ out to the slave. It is quite possible that in the sale of wool the more ancient conventional fashion of estimating the fleece as worth so much in other familiar commodities long continued for mercantile purposes, the weighing of the wool in small portions being only used as a check on the dishonesty of the spinners. At all events we have found wool estimated by the fleece in mediaeval Ireland, at a time when weights are in common use for the metals. Such then is the condition of things in the Homeric Poems. Gold is transferred by weight and by weight wool is apportioned out for spinning. Let us now turn to the Old Testament and find what are the objects which are dealt in by weight. All transactions in money are thus carried on, as for instance the purchase by Abraham of the Cave of Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite when “Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current _money_ with the merchant” (Gen. xxiii. 16). So likewise in Achan’s confession: “I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight” (Joshua vii. 21). And so too in the Book of Judges (viii. 26) the weight of the rings taken from the Midianites and given to Gideon was “a thousand and seven hundred shekels of gold; beside ornaments, and collars, and purple raiment that was on the kings of Midian, and beside the chains that were about their camels’ necks.” And again David bought the threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite for six hundred shekels of gold by weight (1 Chron. xxi. 25), although the same purchase is described in 2 Samuel (xxiv. 24) as being effected for fifty shekels of silver. In Solomon’s time gold has become exceedingly abundant, and we find it reckoned by talents and minae (pounds). For “king Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom. And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to king Solomon” (1 Kings ix. 26-8). And after the story of the Queen of Sheba’s visit and her gift to the king of “an hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices very great store, and precious stones,” we read that “the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and