Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ix. (1916), No. V4. 43 



inch wide. Every piece was finely polished, and reduced 

 to the thinness of a card. Small perforations were made 

 at each corner to enable the pieces to be threaded 

 together. The labour in making this, Ellis says, must 

 have been excessive, as so many hundred pieces of pearl- 

 shell had to be cut, ground down, polished, and perforated, 

 without iron tools. Its manufacture was regarded as a 

 sacred work. 



Pearl-oyster shells set in whales' teeth are considered 

 to be the most valuable ornament that a Fijian possesses; 

 he wears it at dances hanging on his breast, and he is 

 forbidden by the chiefs to sell it. 114 



It has been asserted by some historians that pearls 

 were unknown in the New World in pre-Columbian times, 

 but we have evidence that ages prior to the discovery 

 of America by Columbus the ancient inhabitants fully 

 appreciated these gems. Quantities of pearls, in many 

 cases perforated for stringing as necklaces, etc., have been 

 discovered in the mounds erected by the ancient popu- 

 lation of the Mississippi Valley. Professor Putnam 115 

 records that in excavating the mounds near Madisonville, 

 Indiana, not less than fifty thousand pearls were found, 

 most of them pierced and injured by heat. Squier and 

 Davis 116 found them on the hearths of five distinct groups 

 of mounds in Ohio, and sometimes in such numbers that 

 they could be gathered by the hundred. In addition to 

 the pearls, quantities of other interesting objects were met 

 with which indicate the existence of inter-tribal com- 

 merce on an extensive scale at a remote period. The 



iai II. N. Moseley, "Notes by a Naturalist on H. M.S. Challenger," 

 1892, p. 286. 



115 Proc. Anier. Assoc. Adv. Set., 1884. 



11G Squier and Davis, " Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," 

 Washington, 1848. 



