91 



The fifth and most inferior o-rade is Alabi/a, cut from 

 the smaller sizes of Jaffna dead shells. The wholesale 

 price varies from Rs. 5 to Rs. 10 per 100 sections. 



[e) Details of bangle manufacture. 



Being an industry widely scattered over a large area, 

 the two Bengals and Assam, it is to be expected that 

 considerable variations in the conduct of manufacture 

 should prevail. In large centres such as Dacca and 

 Calcutta a great part of the work is carried on by 

 capitalists employing workpeople on piecework ; else- 

 where it is largely a home or family industry carried on 

 by the head of a household with the aid of his sons and 

 relatives. 



In Dacca the industry falls into two chief divisions, 

 one engaged upon the preparation of working sections 

 of the shell which may either be wrought into the 

 finished product by other craftsmen in the town or else 

 exported to other places where the trade is limited to the 

 ornamentation of working sections sawn from the shells 

 elsewhere. 



The preparation of working sections is carried out 

 usually in shady sheds in the backyards of the employers. 

 In a typical one six sawyers were employed. The shell 

 first passes through a preparatory treatment for the 

 purpose of extracting the columella and thereby reducing 

 the amount of labour necessary in sawing the shell into 

 sections. To admit of this a slice of the lip is first sawn 

 off ; it is then comparatively easy to break through and 

 shatter, by way of the mouth opening, the majority of 

 the various septa connecting the columella with the outer 

 wall of the shell. The apex of the shell is next smashed 

 in and the apical septa destroyed, so releasing the 

 columella, already set free in its oral portion. The shell 

 is now open from end to end. The tool employed for 

 breaking away the columella is a hammer fashioned on 

 the principle of the well-known geologist's hammer, 

 sharp-edged on the one side and square on the other. 



The shell is now ready for the sawyer, who sits on the 

 earthen floor tightly wedged between two short stakes 

 of unequal length driven into the ground. Against the 

 longer, measuring some 15 inches above the ground, the 

 worker's back is supported, while against the shorter, 



