328
TURKEY.
CHAP. XXVII.
Turkey.
of the delusion which had been spread respectingthe ancient produce of that metal. After re-marking that the only way by which gold is nowprocured is by washing the sands of the rivers,he says, “ in this manner a considerable quantityis still annually accumulated, though it seems tobe rapidly decreasing, for in 1593 the governor ofMozambique , George Menzes, collected for him-self and the viceroy of India one hundred thou-sand crusades, and I do not believe that onethird of this amount is now altogether annuallyproduced 1 .”
In taking a review of the produce of gold andsilver from Asia , the field is so extensive and theinformation to be collected so imperfect, that noone, however industrious in his researches, canhope to do more than arrive at some foundationon which to ground an estimate 2 .
In Asiatic Turkey few mines are now or haverecently been worked. The only district in whichsilver is procured is that of Urla, in the province
1 See Salt ’s Voyage to Abyssinia, page 68. The crusadeshere mentioned were probably the thirty-second part of anounce of gold, and equal to about two shillings and sixpencesterling.
2 In making extracts from the various authorities on thesubject of Asiatic mining, which were made without any viewto publication, the references to the authority were unfor-tunately omitted, and many of them cannot now be given;but it is believed that the greater part, especially what respectsthe islands, was taken from the works of Crawford.