‘ 
72 Shells as evidence of the Migrations. 
the Mediterranean, spreading from there to India, China, 
and other places, and was found by Columbus to exist 
among the inhabitants of the New World. 
In previous papers attention has been called to the 
intimate association which exists between the special 
appreciation of pearls and the geographical distribution 
of elements of a culture, including amongst other things, 
the use of shell-purple for dyeing, and of conch-shells for 
trumpets. The evidence concerning the spread of these 
latter cultural elements has already been given,' and the 
object of this chapter is to present some of the facts 
connected with the distribution of the use of pearls and 
pearl-shell. 
The remarkable manner in which the sources of pearls 
and pearl-shell coincide with the distribution of megalithic 
structures has been emphasised by Mr. W. J. Perry in his 
recently published paper on “ The Relationship between 
the Geographical Distribution of Megalithic Monuments 
and Ancient Mines.”* Some further facts in demonstra- 
tion of this are included in the present communication. 
When the fashion for pearls and pearl-shell was first 
instituted is not known, but the available evidence 
suggests that it originated somewhere in the vicinity of 
Egypt, if not in Egypt itself. From this centre the 
fashion spread to surrounding nations of antiquity, and at 
a later time, together with an extraordinary collection of 
fantastic practices and beliefs, it was carried far and wide, 
eventually reaching the Far Kast, Oceania, and the New 
World. Phoenician influence was undoubtedly largely 
instrumental in the distribution of the appreciation of the 
pearl, and in the course of trade these ancient mariners 
inaugurated extensive pearl-fisheries in many of the places 
? Chapters I. & II. 
* Manch. Memoirs (Lit, & Phil. Soc.), vol. \x. (1915), No. 1, 
