290 INTRODUCTION TO CONCHOLOGY. 



and called by them the Wliite Conch, principally constitutes 

 the breast-plate of their high priest. This breast-plate is 

 worn on the annual festival of the natives, when this " great 

 beloved man," as he is termed by his brethren, being clothed 

 in a white raiment of finely-dressed doe-skin, which resem- 

 bles the ephod of the Jews, enters the holiest division in 

 their place of worship, and offers the sacred fire as the yearly 

 atonement for the sins of his people. 



A few years since, considerable-sized specimens of the 

 White Conch were discovered in ancient Indian tumuli, in 

 the neighbourhood of Cincinnati. They were most probably 

 drinking-cups, or small sacred vessels, used by the abori- 

 gines in connection with sacrificial rites, or in making 

 libations. Such specimens become of some importance 

 with reference to the Asiatic origin of the North American 

 Indians. Conchologists mention the shores of Asia, and 

 those of contiguous islands, as frequented by this interest- 

 ing species; its discovery, therefore, in one of the old 

 burying-places affords a presumptive proof of the long- 

 asserted migration of the present race of Indians from Asia. 

 Taken in connection with other evidence, it may, indeed, be 

 regarded as corroborative of that popular belief. 



Shells of the Mytilus abound in the cabinets of the natu- 



