328 Bibliographical Notice. 



Prof. Elliot Smith has long been striving to induce the prota- 

 gonists of this antiquated school to adopt more enlightened 

 methods of reasoning. By way of demonstrating the effectiveness 

 of the more rational method one of his disciples — Mr. Wilfred 

 Jackson — has set himself the task of tracing the migrations of early 

 culture by means of the molluscan shells which came to be inti- 

 mately associated therewith. 



This shell-cult began, apparently, far back in prehistoric times, 

 in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea and the eastern Mediterranean, 

 where cowries, shell-purple, shell-trumpets, pearls, and pearl-shell 

 came to be regarded as possessions of great price. In these, indeed, 

 the foundations of religion, art, and commerce were laid, and with 

 this cult went the erection of megalithic monuments and sun- 

 worship. 



The cowry shell appears to have been the seed out of which the 

 associated complex of ideas developed. It was regarded with 

 peculiar veneration, at least semi-erotic in its origin, for it would 

 seem that the belief in its life-giving powers, which dominated all 

 its other ascribed virtues, arose out of the suggested likeness of the 

 inferior aspect of the shell to the human vulva. It imparted 

 fertility and help in parturition. Endowed thus with mystical 

 gifts of vitality, it became the custom to bury cowries with the 

 dead, to ensure their resurrection. The wonderful powers of 

 cowry shells having thus possessed men's minds, it is not surprising 

 to find them used as artificial eyes for mummies and idols, as 

 charms against the " Evil-eye " and to bring good luck. Hence 

 their use in games of chance and as currency, where, originally, 

 as " pearls of great price," they were given in exchange for some 

 much desired object which these alone could buy. 



The great antiquity of these beliefs is attested by their discovery 

 with the remains of Cro-Magnon man and in prehistoric graves in 

 Great Britain, as well as among the ancient Chinese, while to-day 

 they retain all their ancient potency among savage peoples the 

 world over. 



The Author has convincingly presented the evidence he has so 

 laboriously collected that there seems no room for doubt as to his 

 contention that this shell-cult was spread by early adventurers in 

 their search for gold and pearls, and the metals, which necessarily 

 carried them further and further afield. Wherover they settled 

 there they set up their megalithic monuments inseparably associated 

 with sun-worship. Thus we have a consistent story, and thus we 

 can trace the wanderings of early man from the Old World to the 

 New. This thesis, at any rate, is far more reasonable than the 

 contention that those apparently precisely similar beliefs associated 

 with the same objects were independently evolved " by the similarity 

 of the working of the human mind." 



