Tortoiseshell and the Turtle Fisheries. 361 



doubted veracity, and we must credit the fact, although we 

 are not furnished with any very definite idea of the manner 

 in which they were built. The sea-turtle is sometimes 

 found of sufficient size to make a small boat from the back 

 shell, and of the gigantic luth (Sparges \Dermatochcly s\ 

 coriacea) there is a carapace fully nine feet in length, pre- 

 served in the Sydney Museum, New South Wales. But 

 the Egyptians could have known nothing of such monsters. 

 They must have used the land-tortoise, and most probably 

 had the art of welding together pieces of shell by means of 

 heat. 



Diodorus tells us that, besides furnishing food for the 

 people bordering the Red Sea, they made of the 

 carapace small boats to cross the Red Sea, utensils for 

 holding various substances, and tiles for covering their 

 dwellings. 



" I have been told," says Dampier, " of a monstrous 

 tortoise taken in the Bay of Campeachy, which measured 

 four feet from the back to the belly, and six feet in width. 

 The son of Captain Rock, 9 or 10 years old, used this as a 

 boat to go from the shore to his father's vessel, about a 

 quarter of a league." Another voyager, Lemaire, states 

 that, at Cape Blanc, the turtles are of such a size that some 

 with the bones removed yielded a barrel of flesh, without 

 the head, throat, tail, fins, tripe, and eggs, and would 

 furnish a good meal to 30 men. Firmin, "Voyage in 

 Equinoxial Holland," page 80. 



The specimens to be seen in the Natural History 

 Museums of Paris and London, give an idea of the mon- 

 strous size of some of these sea-turtles, so that there is 

 nothing exaggerated in the accounts of travellers. But it is 

 not these large turtles that are most esteemed for food ; 

 those of 10 or 25 Ibs. weight are the best flavoured. 



