discovery and use to silver owing to its natural form of deposit, and that, although in a region where gold does not exist, copper may have been the first of the metals to come under human notice, yet wherever gold-bearing strata are found, there is a great probability that gold was the first metal known. Schrader (op. cit. p. 174) has discussed the evidence from the Linguistic Palaeontological point of view, and whilst much of what he says is interesting, there are some points in his conclusions which shake one’s faith in the infallibility of the Linguistic method for determining disputed points in archaeology. Gold he considers was known to the Egyptians from the remotest times, and so also to the Semites of Asia. As gold is found in abundance in the tombs of Mycenae (circ. B.C. 1400) he considers that just about that time the Greeks had acquired a knowledge of gold from the Phoenicians. The Greek Chrysos (χρυσος), gold, is derived, according to many scholars, from the Phoenician equivalent for charutz, the Hebrew name for the same metal.
There is plainly no relationship between the Egyptian name Nub and the Semitic appellation. The question, however, may arise