SOME ETHNOGRAPHIC PHASES OF CONCHOLOGY. 393 



lances, and harpoons, as well as personal ornaments ; while the moUusk 

 itself was sought for and prized as food. The strombus gigas is still 

 fished for the table off the Island of Barbadoes, and numerous ancient 

 weapons and implements made from its shell have been dug up on the 

 island. Pearls also, of a beautiful pink color, are occasionally formed 

 by this shell-fish, and from their rarity are greatly valued ; whUe 

 the modern adaptation of the ancient cameo-engraver's art to shells, 

 as well as their employment in the production of the finer porcelain 

 and miniature statuary, have led to those beautiful marine products 

 of the American tropics being more sought after, in Europe, for the 

 manufacture of personal ornaments and other works in the highest 

 class of art, even than the coveted secretions of the meleagrince, 

 brought from the pearl fisheries of Ormus or Ceylon, or from the 

 Bahrein Islands in the Persian Gulf. 



Thus the necessities of man in the savage state, and the ever- 

 varying devices to gratify the luxurious exactions of civilization, have 

 equally contributed to the ingenious application of the shells, and 

 other products of molluscous animals, to the use of man. Under this 

 head we might refer to the murex trunculus of the Mediterranean, the 

 source, as is believed, of the celebrated Tyrian purple of the ancient 

 world ; and to others of the genus purpura, — such as the purpura 

 lapillus, — which have also been turned to use by the dyer. The 

 various pearl-producing species of the meleagrina, in like manner 

 illustrate the refinements and excesses of ancient and modern luxury. 

 The orient pearl of the Egyptian queen, " The treasure of an oyster," 

 and the occidental pearl of Philip II., from St. Margaritas, the pearl 

 island of our New "World, which weighed 250 carats, and was valued 

 at 150,000 dollars ; or again the still more costly pearl of Louis XIV., 

 brought from Catifa on the Arabian Coast, by his excentric protege, 

 Jean Baptiste Tavernier, the son of an Antwerp engraver whom the 

 Grand Monarch created Baron d'Aubonne, and who paid for his 

 Arabian pearl the almost incredible sum of ^61 10,000. Great as are 

 the sums still annually expended on the produce of the pearl fisheries 

 for the gratification of eastern and western luxuriance of ornamentation, 

 the Antwerp adventurer has secured the palm for the licentious Court 

 of Louis le Grand. The most abundant annual pearl harvest in the 

 world is believed to be the product of the Bahrein Island fisheries, in 

 the Persian Gulf, but the revenue of this falls somewhat short of 

 j6 100, 000 sterling, even in the most prolific years. Pearls to the 



VOL. III. AA 



