THE TECHNOLOGIST. [March 1, 1865. 



358 IRISH BOG-OAK ORNAMENTS. 



decked themselves with ornaments made of shells, the natives of 

 Darnley Island, off the coast of New Guinea, are stated (cir. 1843) to 

 use shells as substitutes for dress. The Malays need calcined shell, 

 (chunam) to impart a relish to their favourite masticatory, the sliced 

 betel nut. The American mound-builders reduced shells to a coarse 

 powder, and mixed it with the clay employed in making their pottery. 

 According to tradition, a dog broke a shell on the sea-shore, and thus 

 led to the discovery of the renowned dye — the Tyrian purple — so highly 

 prized by the ancients. The byssus of the Pinna shell was spun and. 

 woven into a silky cloth by the ancients ; indeed, gloves and other 

 articles are still made from it as curiosities. 



I say nothing of the value which has always attached to pearls, or 

 of the importance of shell-fish as food, although the Danish shell- 

 mounds (Kjokkenmodding) and those of Massachusetts and Georgia, 

 U.S., carry us back to a period when certain tribes almost subsisted upon 

 molluscs. 



The modern British trade in shells, however, is not unimportant, as 

 your readers may learn by looking to the Technologist, vol. i., p. 271. 

 Details are there given of the value of the imports of foreign-collected 

 shells for the year 1859, amounting to the very respectable sum of 

 274,268*. 

 Salisbury Museum. 



IRISH BOG-OAK ORNAMENTS. 



One branch of art manufacture exclusively Irish is the manufacture of 

 ornaments from Irish bog-oak. In compensation as it were for the 

 coal-fields of England, Ireland possesses vast tracts of peat moss or bogs. 

 In these have been found, deeply buried, the relics of primeval forests 

 which flourished, it may be, before man had trodden the earth. Oak, 

 fir, deal, and yew have been dug up and used for firing and other pur- 

 poses ; but in the present century the hand of Art has converted por- 

 tions of this product from comparative uselessness to articles of artistic 

 value. 



The history of bog-oak manufacture is somewhat interesting. When 

 George IV. visited Ireland in 1821, a person of the name of M'Gurk 

 presented him with an elaborately-carved walking-stick of Irish bog- 

 oak the work of his own hands, and received, we believe, a very ample 

 remuneration. The work was much admired and M'Gurk obtained 

 several orders from time to time. Subserviently a man of the name of 

 Council, who lived in the lovely lake district of Killarney, commenced 

 to do somewhat more regular business in carving the oak to be found 

 plentifully in the district, and selling his work to the visitors as souve- 



