286 The Commercial Products of the Sea. 



Lastly, the uses of shells as studies of design, form, and 

 colour to the sculptor, painter, architect, and art manu- 

 facturer, may be seen in various parts of the South Ken- 

 sington Museum. 



Lamarck long ago recommended to the attentive study 

 of the architect the extreme diversity of the protuberant 

 parts on the surface of shells, as well as the regularity and 

 elegance of their distribution. There is no possible form of 

 which nature does not offer examples. Architecture would 

 find in many of the species of the genus Cerithium, even 

 to those of Pleurotomis and spirals, a choice of models for 

 the adornment of columns, and these models would be 

 found very worthy of being employed. 



Shells were the favourite objects of ornamentation of 

 the older wood-carvers, as evidenced in the fireplaces of 

 many ancient mansions. The famous garoon pattern, so 

 much used formerly by silversmiths, is said to be derived 

 from the edge of the trumpet shell (Triton femorale}, which 

 is called the garoon shell. 



There are many other industrial uses of shells, but those 

 enumerated may be considered the principal ones. 



Mother-of-pearl, and other nacreous shells, will be 

 noticed in a separate chapter. 



The aggregate value of the imports of foreign shells, in 

 the last few years, may be taken at ,250,000. It is some- 

 what difficult to arrive at any correct estimate on this 

 subject, because shells are scarcely particularized in the 

 Board of Trade returns. Classified under the head of raw 

 materials which come in " duty free " for the use of manu- 

 facturers, the officials are very indifferent as to the nature 

 of the imports ; and thus we have no account of the rough 

 cameo shells, the snail and ear shells, the Murices, and 

 others which are received in large quantities. When shells 



