OP NORTH CAROLINA. , 315 



Their money is of different sorts, but all made 

 of shells, which are found on the coast of Carolina, 

 which are very large and hard, so that they are 

 very difficult to cut. Some English smiths have 

 tried to drill this sort of shell money, and there 

 by thought to get an advantage ; but it proved so 

 hard, that nothing could be gained. They often- 

 times make, of this shell, a sort of gorge, which 

 they wear about their neck in a string ; so it hangs 

 on their collar, whereon semetimes is engraven a 

 cross, or some odd sort of figure, which comes next 

 in their fancy. There are other sorts valued at a 

 doe skin, yet the gorges will sometimes sell for 

 three or four buck skins ready dressed. There be 

 others, that eight of them go readily for a doe skin ; 

 but the general and current species of all the In- 

 dians in Carolina, and, I believe, all over the con- 

 tinent, as far as the bay of Mexico, is that which 

 we call Peak and Ronoak ; but Peak more espe- 

 cially. This is that which at "New York, they call 

 wampum, and have used it as current money 

 amongst the inhabitants for a great many years. 

 This is what many writers call porcelan, and is 

 made in ISTew York in great quantities, and with 

 us in some measure. Five cubits of this purchase 

 a dressed doe skin, and seven or eight purchase a 

 dressed buck skin. An Englishman could not af- 

 ford to make so much of this wampum for five or 

 ten times the value ; for it is made out of a vast 

 great shell, of which that country affords plenty ; 

 where it is ground smaller than the small end of a 



