The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1908-03-05
OPHIR is FOUND,
SAYS DIR. PETERS.
Land oi Cold Where Solomon
and David Cot Riches Is In South.
ern Africa.

DR.. Carl Peters, so well known IN
connection with the opening up
of Africa, has started on lecturing
tour in Germany with two objects in
view--first, to win recruits to the
cause of German expansion in the
Dark Continent; second, to prove
that he has found the famous gold
land of Ophir.
The reader who has forgotten
where the word "Ophir" occurs will
find It in the Biblical books of Kings
and Chronicles. One thousand years
before Christ King David and the
wise Solomon. his son, sent to Ophir
ships which brought back from thence
gold and precious stones, ivory and
valuable timber, which these magnih-
cent rulers employed in building
their gorgeous temples and palaces.
Peters began to think Of this sub
feet after he had discovered an old
Flemish map of the eighteenth CEN
tury on which he saw the word
"Ophir" printed across one of the
least known districts of Southern
Central Africa The first thing that
struck him was the similarity of the
names Africa and Ophir. There was
first the Arabic word Afr (Ophir)
which when Latinized became Afer.
1t was an easy transition from Afer
to Africa. He thought further and
deeper and began to read Christian
tradition. All pointed to South
Africa.
The ancient literature he read
made Peters also acquainted with
the fact that at all ages since Solo
mons time Ophir had been sought
in numerous parts of the world-in
Arabia, Persia. Mesopotamia. India;
1t had even been sought in America,
and there are ancient Spanish records
which state that among the early con-
quistadores of Peru and Mexico were
not few who believed that they had
found not only Ell Dorado but Ophir
as we'll
Suddenly II occurred to Peters
that the famous gold land must be in
the neighborhood of Simbabje in
Southeast Africa. 1t was an inspira-
tion.
He was attacked for this belief,
and theologians and others with a
different theory cast on him the re-
proach that he was not Semitic
scholar.
But he maintained that he was
right. The ships of Solomon, he
said, passed through the Red Sea and
skirted the coast of Africa until they
arrived at their port. And they GER
tainly must have brought back mill
lions in gold. 1t might not have been
enough to satisfy the NAV of America
In the present crisis, but for those re-
mote days 1t must have been extraor-
dinary.
Only Africa could have produced
that quantity of gold. Arabia and
India have never produced gold in re-
markable quantities.
In his description of the Zambesi
territory Peters says he has seen in
Vulnerable traces which compel him
to believe that there and nowhere
else was the land of Ophir. Forsaken
mines by the score are there, and no
less than $4,000 places where gold
has been dug at depths of from thirty
to forty feet. Ruins Of towns and viii
lagos, remains of temples and palaces
speak eloquently of the past glories
of the region.
They point, moreover, to Phoeni-
clan origin. Mighty terraces and
towers raised by the hand of man are
still traceable. These builders were
certainly of race superior to the
negro. One still finds in the graves
remnants of things which point to the
worship of Baal.
But Peters weightiest argument is
that in the Septuagint translation of
the Bible Ophir is called Sofala, and
the Arabs to the present day call the
Zambesi district indifferently Sofala
and 1.-The land of gold. New York
World.