ANCIENT ABOEIGINAL TEADE IN NORTH AMERICA. 385 



tained il?s original lustre, not Laving been extracted by means of 

 fire."* 



It is evident, tberefore, that the Indians obtained tlieir pearls, in part 

 at least, from their river-muscles, many of which are known to be 

 margaritiferous.f These mollusks undoubtedly were used as food by 

 the aborigines, who ate alligators, snakes, and other animals less tempt- 

 ing than the contents of fluviatile shells. Indeed, I learned from ])r. 

 Brinton, who was attached to the Army of the Cumberland during the 

 late civil war, that muscles of the Tennessee river were occasionally 

 eaten "as a change" by the soldiers of that corps, and pronounced no 

 bad article of diet. Shells of the Unio are sometimes found in Indian 

 graves, where they had been deposited with the dead, to serve as food 

 during the journey to the land of spirits. In many parts of the North 

 American inland heaps of fresh-water shells are seen, indicating the 

 places where the natives feasted upon the mollusks. Atwater has drawn 

 attention to such accumulations on the banks of the Muskingum, in 

 Ohio4 Heaps "of muscle-shells may be seen in Alabama, along the 

 rivers wherever Indians used to live. Thousands of the shells lie 

 banked up, some deep in the ground. § Dr. Brinton saw on the Tennes- 

 see riv^er and its tributaries numerous shell-heaps, consisting almost 

 exclusively of the Unio virginiamis (Lamarck !). In all instances he 

 found the shell-heaps close to the water-courses, on the rich alluvial 

 bottom-lands. " The mollusks," he says, " had evidently been opened 

 by iilacing them on a fire. The Tennessee muscle is magaritiferous, and 

 there is no doubt but that it was from this species that the early tribes 

 obtained the hoards of pearls which the historians of De Soto's explor- 

 ation estimated by bushels, and which were so much prized as orna- 

 ments. It is still a profitable employment, the jewelers buying them 

 at prices varying from one to fifty doUars."|| KjoeJclcenmoeddings on the 

 St. John's river, in Florida, consisting of river-shells, were examined 

 by Professor Wyman, and described by him ; he saw similar accumula- 

 tions on the banks of the Concord river in Massachusetts, and was in- 

 formed by eye-witnesses that they are numerous in California-^! On 

 Stalling's Island, in the Savannah river, more than two hundred miles 

 above its mouth, there stands a mound of elliptical shape, chiefly com- 

 posed of the muscles, clams, and snail-shells of the river. This tumu- 



* Garcilasso de la Vega, Conquete de la Floride, Vol. II, p. 296. 



t As Mr. Isaac Lea, of Philadelphia, informs me, pearls are found iu various species 

 of the Unionidw, more frequently in Unio com'planatus, Margantana margaritifera, and 

 Anodonta fluviatilis. But they occur occasionally in all the species of this family. Very 

 large and valuable pearls have been found iu New Jersey. 



t Archteologia Americana, Vol. i, p. 226, 



§ Pickett, History of Alabama, Charleston, 1851, Vol. I p. 12. 



H Brinton, Artificial Shell-Deposits in the United States, Smithsonian Report for 

 18C6, p. 357, 



^ Wyman, Fresh-Water Shell-Heaps of the St. John's River, East Florida, Salem, 

 Massachusetts, 1868, p. 6. 

 25 s 



