CONCHOLOGY. 



to prove that th^eir leisure hours were so employed. The prodilc^j 

 tions of the sea were delineated in their manuscripts ; Pliny speaka 

 of the delight the artist took in painting the asterias, or sea stars. 

 The spontaneous offerings of the ocean were depicted in their? 

 natural colours upon the walls of their dwellings, abundant evidence 

 of which appears among the ancient paintings jof Herculaneum and 

 Pompeii and that the shells themselves were sometimes collected 

 by the ancients is placed beyond a doubt from those remains which 

 have been found, at various times, among the relics of those cele- 

 brated ruins, and also among the ruins of the Roman town, perhaps 

 no less ancient, denominated La Scava.. 



It is declared by Pliny, in the ninth book of his Natural His- 

 tory, that the Romans of his time were better acquainted with the> 

 productions of the sea than the animals of the land, a circumstance ' 

 he attributes, and unquestionably with sufficient reason, to the ex- 

 travagant excess to which the luxurious taste of those times was 

 carried. This will excite the less surprise when we recollect the. 

 various useful results deduced from this investigation. Of these 

 we have several very memorable examples ; the exquisite dyes of 

 green, the scarlet, and the imperial purple, which they possessed 

 and prized so eminently, were all the produce of -testaceous bodie . 

 And so likewise the pearls gathered from the various perlaceous L 

 valve shells ; and pearls we are assured were in those days valued at 

 Rome, as in Egypt, at a price infinitely beyond that of gold an I gems, 

 the diamond alone excepted. 



Pliny tells us, that, in his time, after the diamonds of India and 

 Arabia, pearls were esteemed most precious, and that we may be;^ 



