THE TECHNOLOGIST. . [Feb. 1, 1865 



290 NOTES ON THE DENTALIUM SHELL. 



Lcastly. We may remark that the wages of every employe in the 

 Cossipore factory, from the head boiler down, to the coolie, who carries 

 the bags of sugar (weighing nearly two cwt.) to the export warehouse — 

 that all these wages are calculated according to the production of manu- 

 factured sugar during the month. The result is that everyone works 

 with a sense of self-interested alacrity, which would astonish some of 

 those complacent Englishmen who regard the Hindoos as a set of lazy, 

 lethargic barbarians. 



NOTES ON THE USE OF THE DENTALIUM SHELL BY 

 THE NATIVES OF VANCOUVER'S ISLAND AND BRITISH 

 COLUMBIA. 



Amongst the objects of natural history and ethnology brought from 

 British Columbia and Vancouver's Island by Mr. J. K. Lord was a belt 

 composed of numerous specimens of a species of Dentalium strung 

 together. The species bears an exceedingly close resemblance to that 

 described by Linnaeus as Dentalium entails (Entails vulgaris of Risso 

 and of Dr. Gray's ' Guide to Mollusca '), and appears, notwithstanding 

 the difference of habitat, to be undistinguishable from that European 

 species. It has, however, been described by the late Mr. Nuttall as 

 Dentalium pretiosum, and a figure has been given of it by Mr. Sowerby 

 in one of his late numbers of the ' Thesaurus Conchyliorum.' 



From a careful comparison of the typical specimens of D. pretiosum 

 in Mr. Cuming's collection, there can be no doubt of the identity of that 

 species with the specimens brought by Mr. Lord from Vancouver's 

 Island : those in Mr. Cuming's collection are said to be from California. 

 In examining the old graves on the banks of the Columbia River, along 

 with numerous other articles, such as human bones, flint instruments, &c, 

 Mr. Lord found a number of specimens of a species ol Dentalium, con- 

 siderably eroded and worn, which, when compared with some in Mr. 

 Cuming's collection, appear to be identical with the Dentalium striolatum 

 of Stimpson, from Newfoundland. Although the habitats of all these 

 are very different from each other, in the absence of distinct specific 

 characters they may be taken to be only slight varieties of the old 

 Linnsean species. 



"It is somewhat curious," observes Mr. Lord, ''that these shells 

 (Entalis pretiosus, Nuttall sp. Entails vulgaris?) should have been em- 

 ployed as money by the Indians of North-West America — that is, by the 

 native tribes inhabiting Vancouver's Island, Queen Charlotte's Island, 

 and the mainland coast from the Straits of Fuca to Sitka. Since the 

 introduction of blankets by the Hudson's Bay Company, the use of 

 these shells, as a medium of purchase, has, to a great extent, died out, 



