Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ix. (191 5), No. 1. 11 



indeed told in Oldham's work (p. 61) that the Naga 

 people of southern India lived under the sea in a place 

 called the land of gems ; there they had trading ships 

 and fished for pearls. We can therefore include pearl- 

 fishing among their activities. 



The admirable volume by Ball on the Economic 

 Geology of India (Vol. IV. of the Manual of the Geology 

 of India, 1881,) has come to hand too late for use in this 

 paper. It is a storehouse of precise and detailed infor- 

 mation upon the distributions of ancient mines in India. 

 When a detailed distribution of megalithic structures has 

 been made out it will be possible to test the facts much 

 more stringently. I hope to be able to proceed to this 

 task shortly. At present it would seem that the two 

 distributions, megalithic influence and ancient mines, will 

 coincide with great exactness. 



Keeping in mind the implied association between the 

 megalithic people and pearls, the next map {Map III.) 

 becomes of great interest and importance. With one or 

 two exceptions it is a map of the littoral distribution of 

 the megalithic culture in the Indian and Pacific Oceans : 

 it is also that of the distribution of pearl-shell oysters. 

 In an area from the Red Sea and Persian Gulf right 

 away to the West Indies, the megalithic culture occupies 

 the region of pearl oysters. Both are present in the 

 Red Sea and Persian Gulf, India, Indonesia, Japan, the 

 Caroline and Marshall groups, Melanesia and certain parts 

 of Polynesia,and on certain portions of the American coast 



In the map, which is based upon one found in a 

 school-atlas, no indication is given of the presence of 

 pearl-shell on the coasts of Zanzibar and Madagascar, 

 two localities which are suggestive when the presence of 

 megalithic monuments in Rhodesia and Madagascar is 

 recalled. 



