438 
J. HORNELL ON 
prepared shell, a cut heel due to a slip of the saw, and often enough, a touch of fever. 
Shell slicing calls for the possession of a highly trained eye, perfect steadiness of hand 
and arm, and an ironlike capacity to sit for long periods in a position of great dis- 
comfort. Unless in a perfect condition of bodily fitness such work is an impossibility. 
During apprenticeship few men can endure the strain sufficiently long to accustom 
their body to the habit of the strained position, the constant and monotonous 
attention required by the saw and the extreme fatigue of the occupation. As a con- 
sequence the sawing of working sections is limited to a few centres and a good cutter 
is a valuable asset to his employer. To retain a hold upon these men, employers 
willingly give large advances in cash to them, sometimes amounting, I was told, to 
as much as Rs. 200 per head ; the usual advance ranges between Rs. 100 to Rs. 200. 
Whenever an exceptional need arises for the expenditure of a considerable sum — it 
may be a marriage in the family or cost of death ceremonies — a further advance from 
the employer is relied upon to meet the emergency. The excess beyond a certain sum 
will be gradually liquidated thereafter, leaving a standing advance at the debit of the 
workman which on both sides is not expected to be repaid unless the employee decides 
to quit the service of his master, a virtual impossibility in the case of such improvident 
people as these cutters are, unless he takes service with another employer who is will- 
ing to pay up the whole indebtedness and so take over the debt as well as the workman. 
Hitherto the Dacca and other shell cutters have employed no machine saws. 
They believe that no machinery is capable of cutting the shells without damage, basing 
their belief on the results of an experiment with some form of machine saw tried some 
years ago. The cutters allege that the impact of the saw upon the shell was to cause 
innumerable small fractures which rendered bracelets made from the sections thus cut 
fragile and liable to break much more readily than when the sections are cut by means 
of the hand-saw. It is probable that this effect was produced by the machine used, 
but it does not follow that there are no machine saws on the market capable of cutting 
shells without ill-effect on their substance. Probably the machine used had a saw 
carrying teeth too coarse or too large in size. I noted as a striking and characteristic 
feature of the hand-saw employed, the extreme minuteness of the teeth along the edge, 
and further that their form is dentate, not serrate, that is, the axis of the point 
is vertical and not oblique. The latter characteristic enables the saw to cut equally 
well whether sawing from right to left or conversely. As already noted, so small and 
weak are the teeth that to sharpen such a saw a series of taps along the edge of the 
blade with a chisel set hammerwise in a handle is sufficient for the purpose. 
The further stages in the manufacture of chank bangles vary within wide limits, 
dependent upon the market to be served. Some of the processes require no great 
skill and may be carried out by cheaply paid labour ; others necessitate a long training 
and great expertness on the part of the workers. Of the former is the preliminary 
rubbing down to smoothness and regularity of the inner and outer surfaces of the 
working sections. The first stage after the latter come from the sawing shed is to 
remove as much as possible of the inwardly projecting “ beak ’ ’ which is the remnant 
of the septum between adjacent whorls left after removing the columella. This 
