L42 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society, 



respect to the form of the arch, the absence of mortar and lime for cement, 

 and other indications of a low state of architecture, carried us hack to a 

 remote period of barbarism, perhaps not far in advance of the time when 

 the Bos primigenius, with other extinct or extirpated animals, roamed 

 over the wild parts of Britain. That considerable attention had been 

 paid to the preservation of implements, weapons, ornaments, and other 

 relies of human art, disinterred from these ancient dwellings ; but it 

 did not appear that much care had been bestowed upon the animal 

 remains, which were at least of equal importance. That the object of 

 his communication was to show that these had a special zoological bear- 

 ing, and that much information of a definite character might be obtained 

 if the subject were to engage a more general interest, and if every one 

 having an opportunity were careful in collecting .and preserving the re- 

 mains of animals found in these primitive habitations of our Celtic an- 

 cestors. 



11. On the Structure of Pearl. By Alexander Bryson, Esq. (Numerous 

 illustrative specimens were exhibited.) 



The author commenced by stating that the first mention of pearls being 

 used as ornaments by mankind was found in the ancient writings of the 

 Chinese. So early as twenty-two and a half centuries before the Chris- 

 tian era, pearls are enumerated as tribute or tax. In the Rh — ya, a 

 dictionary compiled one thousand years before Christ, pearls are men- 

 tioned among the most precious products of the empire. Grill, a Swede, 

 long resident in China, was the first who published an account of the 

 Chinese method of forming artificial pearls. This interesting paper is 

 published in the Transactions of the Royal Swedish Academy for 1772. 

 He says — 'When the shells (the Vnio plicatus) rise to the surface of the 

 water to sun themselves, they open their valves. The Chinese, watching 

 their opportunity, insert between the mantle and the shell a string of 

 coarse, ill-coloured pearls, placed at intervals on a cord or wire. When 

 these are inserted, the shells sink to the bottom of the pond, where they 

 are allowed to remain for one year, when they are fished up and opened; 

 the coarse rough pearls are now found coated with a fine covering of 

 nacre. In the joss shells are placed clay images of Buddha, which, when 

 sufficiently covered with nacre, are skilfully sawn out by the Chinese, and 

 worn and worshipped by them as the emblem of the creative power. Lin- 

 naeus, probably unaware of what had been done in China so many hundred 

 years before our era, endeavoured to produce artificial pearls by piercing 

 the nacreous shells from without, and inserting foreign bodies ; but his 

 success was not so great as his patron. King Frederick Adolphus, had anti- 

 cipated. So sanguine was- his Swedish Majesty that that discovery would 

 enrich his country and decorate his court, that he conferred a pension 

 and a patent of nobility on the great naturalist. Had this honour been 

 conferred on Linnaeus for his " Sy sterna Naturae," the monarch would 

 have been more honoured, and the conferred title of Von Linne perhaps 

 respected by posterity. Unfortunately for the monarch, his empty title 

 is forgotten, and Linnaeus, not Von Linne, remembered with veneration 

 by all true lovers of nature. Mr Bryson remarked that, though the 

 French are now by far the most successful producers of artificial pearls T 

 he had failed to obtain the slightest hint of the method employed, no paper 

 having appeared, as far as he was aware, on the subject. The only notice of 

 the formation of the coques de perles of the French which he had obtained 

 was by Von Siebold, who has given, in his " Zeitschrift fur Wissenschaft- 

 liche Zoologie," a description of the process. It differs very little from 

 that followed by the Chinese. A piece of nacre is sawn from a shell 



