Background

History

Silver ( Anglo-Saxon , seolfor siolfur  ; Ag is from the Latin argentum ) has been known since ancient times. It is mentioned in the book of Genesis , and slag heaps found in Asia Minor and on the islands of the Aegean Sea indicate that silver was being separated from lead as early as the 4th millennium BC .

Silver has been used for thousands of years for ornaments and utensils , for trade , and as the basis for many monetary systems . Its value as a precious metal was long considered second only to gold . In Ancient Egypt and Medieval Europe , it was often more valuable than gold.

Associated with the moon , as well as with the sea and various lunar goddesses , the metal was referred to by alchemists by the name luna .

One of the alchemical symbols for silver is a crescent moon with the open part on the left (see picture, right).

The metal mercury was thought of as a kind of silver, though the two elements are chemically unrelated; its names hydrargyrum ("watery silver") and the English quicksilver attest to this.

In heraldry , the argent , in addition to being shown as silver (this has been shown at times with real silver in official representations), can also been shown as white. Occasionally, the word "silver" is used rather than argent; sometimes this is done across-the-board, sometimes to avoid repetition of the word "argent" in blazon.

Europeans found a huge amount of silver in the New World in Zacatecas and Potosí , which triggered a period of inflation in Europe. The conquistador Pizarro was said to have resorted to having his horses shod with silver horseshoes due to the metal's abundance, in contrast to the relative lack of iron in Peru .

The Rio de la Plata was named after silver (in Spanish , plata ), and in turn lent the meaning of its name to Argentina .

Source: www.wikipedia.org

"America today has insufficient savings to finance both crucial investment and its consumption of imports."
James Dale Davidson"