168 Economic Uses of Shells, and their Inhabitants. 



Turbinella pijrum, and our Sepoy troops wear necklaces made 

 from the canal of the same shell, as part of their parade 

 uniform 1 (See Indian Museum Collection, Whitehall.) 



One very ancient use of shells was as a medium of currency, 

 and among certain tribes this custom remains in force even at 

 the present day. In Oregon the currency consists of strings of 

 the shells of Dentalium. 



Some of the North American Indians used to make coinage 

 (wampum) of the seaworn fragments of Venus mercenaria, by 

 perforating and stringing them on leather thongs. 



The money-cowry (Cyprcea moneta), is a native of the 

 Pacific and Eastern seas. Many tons' weight of this little shell 

 are annually imported into this country, and again exported 

 for barter with the native tribes of Western Africa. In the 

 year 1818 sixty tons of the money-cowry were imported into 

 Liverpool. 



The use of turbinated or spiral shells as trumpets or horns 

 to sound an alarum with, appears to be of most ancient date, 

 and cosmopolitan in extent. The practice is followed among 

 the African aborigines, the natives of the Eastern Archipelago, 

 and New Zealand, and, according to the Japanese picture which 

 we reproduce in our Plate (Pig. 1), it is followed in Japan at 

 the present day. 



" The sound of the trumpet or shell (writes Ellis), a species 

 of murex (triton), used by the priests in the temple, and also 

 by the herald, and others on board their fleets, was more 

 horrific than that of the drum. The largest shells were usually 

 selected for this purpose, and were sometimes above, a foot in 

 length, and seven or eight inches in diameter at the mouth. In 

 order to facilitate the blowing of this trumpet, they made a perfo- 

 ration, about an inch in diameter, near the apex of the shell; into 

 this they inserted a bamboo cane, about three feet in length, which 

 was secured by binding it to the shell with finely-braided cinet ; 

 the aperture was rendered air-tight by cementing the outsides 

 of it with a resinous gum from the bread-fruit tree. These 

 shells were blown when any procession marched to the temple, 

 at the inauguration of the king, during the worship at the 

 temple, or when a tabu, or restriction, was.imposed in the name 

 of the gods. We have sometimes heard them blown. The 

 sound is extremely loud, both the most monotonous and dismal 

 that it is possible to imagine. - "* Specimens of these may be 

 seen in the Shell Gallery, and also in the Ethnographical Koom 

 at the British Museum. 



ShelUOameoa. — The fountain-shell of the West Indies, 

 Strombus gigas, L., is one of the largest living univalve shells, 

 weighing sometimes four or five pounds; its apex and spines 



• Polynesian Researches, vol. i., p. 283. 



