CARDIUM. 291 



humble branch of our national industry, and gives ao 

 honest employment to thousands of women and chil- 

 dren. In Surtees's c History of Durham ' it is stated that, 

 besides the home consumption, about £300 is annually 

 gained in Greatham alone by this occupation. Near 

 the little village of Penclawdd in South Wales a busy 

 and picturesque scene may be witnessed towards the end 

 of autumn or in the early spring. When the tide is 

 out, nearly all the female and juvenile population are 

 engaged in raking the sands and collecting these shell- 

 fish. The cockles are put into tubs and pans of fresh 

 water to get rid of the " grit " or sand, and the next 

 day they are boiled in large caldrons placed in the open 

 air. The produce is then fished out with sieves, and 

 after being well rinsed in clean water is carried to Swan- 

 sea market in baskets poised on the heads of the cockle- 

 women. Many a drawing in the Water-colour Exhibi- 

 tions has been enlivened by the addition of a group thus 

 equipped and crossing the sands at low water. Im- 

 mense heaps of shells are accumulated in the above 

 process of preparing cockles, and may hereafter give rise 

 to as much speculation with regard to the antiquity of 

 the race of cockle-gatherers, as the Danish and Scotch 

 " kjokkenmoddings " do at the present time. The shells 

 also are useful. In places near the sea-coast where 

 ordinary lime is not to be had, or the carriage of it is 

 expensive, there cannot be a better substitute than the 

 lime which is made by calcining cockle-shells. An 

 analysis by Dr. Phipson, a chemist of no mean repute, 

 has shown that they contain more than 90 per cent, of 

 pure carbonate of lime. They seem to have been con- 

 verted into rude ornaments by our ancestors ; and Wil- 

 son, in his ' Prehistoric Annals of Scotland,' describes a 

 cist in which the only relics deposited beside the skele- 



o2 



