Arizona republican., 1917-09-02
COLD PLENTIFUL
 WHEN XERXEs CAME
 BACK FROM GREECE
lSt. Lonis Glohe-DemocraN


 History, at best a bird of passage with a treacherous memory, is silent as to the time when gold was first given higher standard than the other metals. Less useful to the original races of men tha niron and it's kin. we can but suppose it is on its distinction step by step with civilization.
 Appealing to man through his love for the ornates it proved a powerful factor in disseminating the worlds in- habitants, and for ages it was the prime element of conquest.
 Among the ancients gold was sought chiefly for ornamental purposes, and it's use in this respect was beyond the widest extravaganza of modern GUS tom. Not only were the persons of the fortunate possesors adorned in almost every conceivable manner, but the walls and Veilings of their dwellings, their public buildings, the parapets even Of their cities glittered with gold.
 It must have been very plentiful, and was bought and sold delved and sought for, as diamonds are today Kings led their legions against other kingdoms that they might secure their golden hoards.
 XerXes, returning from his trium-
 
 loaded 12,000 camels with the precious treasure
 Solomon's famous temple outshone the sun in it's golden splendor. The vic torius EuXienade reviewed his war like hosts on a plain paved with bars of gold. King David is believed to have possessed gold to the amount of s3.000.- 100000, or over six tons in weight.
 Seven walls of marvellous descrip- tions. glstening one above another in the hues of the rainbow, surrounded Ebatoma, the Median capitol. From the outer parapet of pure white alter mated the colors of ebony, purple, blue and crimson, relieved by the sixth wall of silver, but the seventh outglittered them all in it's coat of gold.
 Apparently, gold continued to in crease in amount until the Augustan era, when it's fount began to fail and the supply grew gradually less.
 No doubt the wars of the Dark Ages waged by the barbaric hordes of the North against the gold hoarders Of the South, scattered and wasted much of the precious metal.
 In its varied uses. too, it was slowly but surely wearing out This was so evident that q Roman philosopher cal culated in a little over 400 years 1t would be lost to man.
 At this time the whole of Europe is estimated to have had less than the value of $200,000,000, or a smaller amount than the United States treas ury has held at one time. Gold up to this time had been little used for money. Coin pieces had not appeared until 800 B. c. Previous to this 1t had occasionally been used as an exchange of value in the form of rings.
 At the critical period when the fau- ure of the old worlds mines and the prodigal usage of it's people threatened the extinction of gold, the new conti- nent with it's vast stores was discov- cred
 Their vivid imagination, fired with fabulous tales of an Fl Dorado of gold, a legion of adventurous fortune seekers sought the western world, the account or whose exploits read like the tales of the Arabian Nights.
 Under it's mad infatuation, Ponce de Leon tramped benea,n lis heel the primeval beauty of the Land of Flow CTS. It was the lodestJne which led De Soto and his thousand followers on thelr four years wanderings through the tracklesS wilderness. It was blaZ- oned on the banner of the conquering Cortez, and it tipped the sword of the merciless Pizarro
 If the shadow of a doubt ever found place in the minds of any of those early voyagers as to the existence of boundless hoard of gold somewhere In the fastness of the unexplored wilds, 1t was dispelled with the fruits of Mon tezuma's mines and the yellow harvest or the lncaS so no rumor was too wild nor conjecture too visionary to find credence.
 Fl Dorado, as first .denominated a king of untold wealeA, who gilded his body with gold before offering his rich tributes to his god, was soon supposed to be a city, and then country
 One Juan Martinez, more audacious than the rest, appearing among his companions after a long absence. told them he had been cast adrift on a great river by enemies, to be rescued at last by party of Indians, who took him to the Golden City, where, he de-