MOLLUSCA: 217 
CHAPTER III. 
ON MOLLUSCOUS ANIMALS AS OBJECTS OF UTILITY. 
Although molluscous bodies furnish many articles of value 
to man, scarcely any naturalist has taken the trouble to 
enumerate the different purposes to which they have been 
applied, or to point out in what manner their usefulness 
might be encreased. To the savage, shells furnish some 
of his most important instruments. They often answer all 
the purposes of a knife, and are extensively employed as a 
substitute for iron: with pieces of the more solid bivalves 
he points his arrows, and forms his fish-hooks. Even when 
farther advanced in civilization, the canaliculated univalves 
sometimes constitute the rustic lamp, while the larger scal- 
lops are employed by the dairy-maid to skim her milk and 
to slice her butter. From the mother-of-pearl shell many 
useful and ornamental articles are fabricated ; and calcined 
shells were formerly esteemed by physicians as absorbents; 
and are still regarded by the farmer as furnishing a valua- 
ble manure. 
Shells thus appear to be of some importance in the arts 
of life ; but the animals contained in these shells are of far 
greater value. As articles of food, shell-fish are extensively 
_ employed by the poor, and even hold a conspicuous place 
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