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J. HORN ELL ON 
from this quality is from Re. i to Rs. 2 per 100 less than similar sized Titkutti 
ones. 
Patti is the 3rd grade, priced from Rs. 2-8 to Rs. 3-8 per 100 sections less than 
those of the Titkutti grade. They are cut from good quality Jaffna shells. The large 
compound bangles so freely used by Santal women are made from this quality. 
The 4th grade, Dhola , is cut from dead shells imported from Ceylon. The price 
for useful-sized sections ranges from Rs. 8 to Rs. 12 per 100 or from Rs. 5 to Rs. 6 per 
100 less than for Patti. 
The 5th and most inferior grade is Alabila , cut from the smaller sizes of Jaffna 
dead shells. The wholesale price varies from Rs. 5 to Rs. 10 per 100 sections. 
(e) Details of Bangle Manufacture. 
Being an industry widely scattered over a large area — the two Bengals and Assam — 
it is to be expected that considerable variations in the conduct of manufacture should 
prevail. In large centres such as Dacca and Calcutta a great part of the work is carried 
on by capitalists employing workpeople on piecework ; elsewhere it is largely a home 
or family industry carried on by the head of a household with the aid of his sons and 
relatives. 
In Dacca, the industry falls into two chief divisions, one engaged upon the prepa- 
ration of working sections of the shell which may either be wrought into the finished 
product by other craftsmen in the town or else exported to other towns where the 
trade is limited to the ornamentation of working sections sawn from the shells else- 
where. 
The preparation of working sections is carried out usually in shady sheds in the 
backyards of the employers. In a typical one six sawyers were employed. The shell 
first passes through a preparatory treatment for the puppose of extracting the colu- 
mella and thereby reducing the amount of labour necessary in sawing the shell into 
sections. To admit of this a slice of the lip is first sawn off ; it is then comparatively 
easy to break through and shatter, by way of the mouth opening, the majority of the 
various septa connecting the columella with the outer wall of the shell. The apex 
of the shell is next smashed in and the apical septa destroyed, so releasing the colu- 
mella, already set free in its oral portion the shell is now open from end to end. 
The tool employed for breaking away the columella is a hammer fashioned on the 
principle of the well-known geologist’s hammer, sharp-edged on one end of head and 
square on the other. 
The shell is now ready for the sawyer, who sits on the earthen floor tightly wedged 
between two short stakes of unequal length driven into the ground. Against the 
longer, measuring some 15 inches above the ground, the worker’s back is supported, 
while against the shorter, only 4 to 5 inches high, his toes are pressed. The space 
between the two stakes measures no more than 18 inches, hence the workman although 
he sits with his knees widely separate is very tightly jammed between the rests. This 
is found essential as it is necessary that his limbs should be rigid during his work, as 
1 This fragment of the columella is utilized by some hill people for making into rude ear or hair ornaments! 
