The Tooth Shells 



shells, one fathom long, or equal in length to the extent of a man's 

 outstretched arms. It required shells of large size and perfect 

 form to reach this high standard. Smaller shells were of lower 

 value. A fathom string of forty shells would buy a slave. Small 

 and imperfect shells were strung together on sinew cords of differ- 

 ent lengths. These formed the small change, "kop-kop," of 

 the tribes. 



The earliest white traders found that the Indians knew where 

 and how to obtain gold from the earth, Learning that they 

 held it in slight esteem, and that avarice with them expressed 

 itself in a craving for strings of shell money, the traders managed 

 to increase the quantity of shells by importing them from the 

 east coast. These were readily exchanged for gold, to the great 

 satisfaction of all concerned. The decline of the popularity of 

 shell money dates from the coming of the trappers of the Hudson 

 Bay Company. Blankets became the standard of value, and the 

 medium of exchange among the Indians. Young men were quick 

 to adopt the new custom, but old men held to the ways of their 

 fathers, and became misers of shell money. In the more remote 

 Alaskan tribes only is it found in circulation at the present day. 



The Angled Tooth Shell (D. hexagonum, Gld.), found on 

 the California coast, has a much more delicate shell than the 

 more northern species. It is distinctly six-angled by ridges 

 extending its whole length. Length, i inch. 



The Common Tooth Shell of warm European waters is 

 D. vulgar e. Da Costa. Its slim shell averages less than two 

 inches in length. The shell is opaque, lustreless, whitish, with 

 tinting of rose or yellow toward the apex, and often has indistinct 

 dusky bands crossing the fine longitudinal striae. The aperture is 

 circular and oblique, not notched. Jeffreys characterises this 

 little creature as a "fastidious Pig from the herd of Epicurus, 

 luxuriously picking out the choicest . morsels with its extensile 

 and delicate captacula." He found only shore forms of Foramin- 

 ifera in the stomachs of specimens examined. 



The largest and finest shells of this species are collected on 

 the Adriatic shores. They are sometimes over two inches long. 



On the colder coasts of the Atlantic on both sides the com- 

 monest species is D. entalis, Linn. (This is identical with 

 D. striolatum, Stimps., and Entalis striolata, Stimps.) Its 

 shell is white, but more glossy and ivory-like than that of D, 



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