SOME ETHNOGRAPHIC PHASES OF CONCHOLOGY. 395 



annually, of 3^40,000 sterling. The uncut cameo shells of various 

 kinds, including the products of widely distant seas, — e. g., the cassis 

 rufa, or hull's mouth ; the cassis Madagascariensis, the hlack helmet, 

 or queen couch ; the cassis cornuta, or horned helmet ; the strombus 

 gig as, or fountain shell : the str-ombus pugilis, and the pyrula carnaria, 

 are annually imported to the value of upwards of ^3,000 sterling, and, 

 in the hands of the cameo engraver, are speedily converted into valuable 

 works of art. But the modern application of marine shells for the 

 purposes of ornament and utility, bring them u^ithin the range of most 

 modern trades. Buttons, studs, knife-handles, paper-cutters, pen- 

 holders, card-cases, parasol handles, card-counters, jewel and needle 

 cases, snuff-boxes, thimbles, richly carved and jewelled brooches, 

 beads, necklaces, and artificial flowers, are all made from these varied 

 spoils of the sea. The ingenious Chinese turn them to numerous uses, 

 one of the most noticeable of which is to supply a substitute for glass. 

 Various species of the placuna, as the p. sella, and p. placenta, being 

 thin and translucent, are used in China for glazing windows and for 

 lanthorns ; while the powdered dust of the same shells furnish the 

 silver pigment for their water- color drawings. 



While thus noting with interest the development of novel and varied 

 modern arts which turn the spoils of the ocean to such diverse uses, 

 and lead to the transport of the gigantic marine shells alike of the 

 Indian Ocean and the Antilles, to the marts of the old world, to con- 

 tribute to European luxury and refinement : a greater interest 

 attaches to the evidences, still traceable, of an ancient trade in the 

 same products of the Florida Gulf, carried on among the widely scat- 

 tered tribes and nations of the New World, before its discovery by 

 Columbus. Reference has already been made to the varied uses to which 

 these tropical shells were applied by the insular Indians of America, when 

 first discovered by the Spaniards, but their economic employment 

 was not limited to the inhabitants of the islands. Abundant evidence 

 exists to prove that they were greatly valued, and even regarded with 

 superstitious reverence, both by the more civilized nations of the 

 neighboring mainland around the Grulf of Florida, and also by the 

 rude Indian tribes even so far north as beyond the shores of our 

 Canadian Lakes. In one of the singular migratory scenes of the 

 ancient Mexican paintings, copied in Lord Kingsborough's " Mexi- 

 can Antiquities,"* from the Mendoza Collection, preserved among 



* Lord Kingaborough's "Mexican Antiquities," Vol. I., plate 68. 



