180 OUR REPTILES. 



use of it in Rome may be guessed at by what we learn from 

 Yelleius Paterculus, who says that when Alexandria was 

 taken by Julius Caesar, the magazines or warehouses were 

 so full of this article that he proposed to have made it the 

 principal ornament of his triumph, as he did ivory after- 

 wards, when triumphing for having happily finished the 

 African war. This, too, in more modern times, was a great 

 article in the trade to China, and I have always been ex- 

 ceedingly surprised, since near the whole of the Arabian 

 gulf is comprehended in the charter of the East-India Com- 

 pany, that they do not make an experiment of fishing both 

 pearls and tortoises ; the former of which, so long abandoned, 

 must now be in great plenty and excellence ; and a few 

 fishers put on board each ship trading to Jidda, might surely 

 find very lucrative employment with a long boat or pinnace, 

 at the time the vessels were selling their cargo in the port ; 

 and while busied in this gainful occupation, the coasts of the 

 Bed Sea might be fully explored. 



The thirteen plates which cover the carapace 

 are known technically as two plates, two main 

 plates, three backs, two wings, two tongues, 

 and two shoulders in all, thirteen. In an 

 animal of the ordinary size, about three feet 

 long and two and a half wide, the largest plates 

 will weigh about nine ounces, and measure 

 about twelve inches by seven, and one-fourth of 

 an inch thick in the middle.* 



The market value of tortoise-shell is subject 

 to many fluctuations, but at ordinary times it 

 ranges from sixteen to thirty shillings per pound. 



* The Technologist, vol. i. p. 382. 



