of any notions as regards currency properly speaking, but because the Arab’s taste lies in silver ornaments for himself, his weapons and his horse. He values then the silver because of its utility as an ornament, whilst gold he cannot employ to the same advantage.
I have thus digressed in order that it may be clearly seen that mankind were not seized with the sacra fames auri from the very first moment when the eye of some wild hunter or nomad first lighted on a gold nugget as it glistened under the sunlight in the stream.
A considerable period may have elapsed after mankind became acquainted with gold or silver before man cast away his necklets or bracelets of shells such as have been found along with the most ancient remains of the human race yet discovered in Europe, and put on his person in their stead similar ornaments beaten out of the gold from the brook. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that the primitive Aryan or primitive Semite, who wore ornaments of shells, used these as instruments of barter, or even currency, in the same way as we have found the peoples of Asia and Africa using their strings of cowries, the aborigines of North America their wampum belts, and the Fijians their whales’ teeth.