424 
J. HORNELL ON 
II. The Present Conditions and Methods of the Industry. 
(a) Preliminary. 
( b ) Present centres of the trade. 
(c) Volume and importance of the trade. 
(d) The trade varieties of shells employed. 
(e) Details of bangle manufacture. 
(/) The economic position of the trade. 
(g) The castes and tribes who use chank bangles. 
(a) Preliminary . 
At the present day, chank cutting, save for some insignificant work done in Kila- 
karai on the Ramnad coast near Pamban,has long been a forgotten art in the south of 
India, in Kathiawar and in Gujarat. It flourishes solely in Bengal and Assam, with 
its headquarters at Dacca. No fishery for chank shells exists off the Bengal coast ; 
the industry depends entirely for an adequate supply of the raw material upon imports 
obtained by way of the wholesale market at Calcutta. 
The best quality of shells used in the trade comes from the fishery carried on 
departmentally by the Government of Madras off the coast of the Tinnevelly District, 
a fact which makes an intimate knowledge of the methods and trade customs both of 
the wholesale merchants and the cutters who convert the shell into bracelets, a matter 
of considerable importance to the Government named. In consequence of this I 
received instructions in 1910 from the Madras Government to proceed to Bengal and 
there institute an enquiry into the present condition and course of the trade in chank 
shells. 
A tour through the two Bengals in September, 1910, was accordingly made ; the 
chief distributing centres were visited, wholesalers and retail buyers were interviewed, 
and all the processes and variations of manufacture were investigated at representative 
workshops in Dacca, Dinajpur, Rangpur and other principal working centres. In the 
following pages an endeavour will be made to present the salient features of the present 
condition of the trade — to give an account of the course of business from the time 
the shells are exported from their various districts of origin till they pass into the hands 
of the workpeople ; an attempt will be made to trace the principal enhancements of 
price as the trade filters through the hands of the various middlemen and to estimate 
the final (total) wholesale value of the finished products in order that the great 
industrial importance of the industry maybe adequately realized. The technical and 
artistic aspects of the industry will also receive due attention, these sections being 
illustrated by a series of photographs illustrative of the various stages in the manu- 
facture and ornamentation of a chank bangle. 
Prior to the enquiry upon which the present notice is based, our knowledge of 
the industry was most meagre. Scarcely any definite information has been recorded, 
save for a few generalizing sentences contained in a short article by Mr. Edgar Thurston 
