142 
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 back 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 
relics of human art, disinterred from these ancient dwellings ; but it 
did not appear that much care had been bestowed upon th^ 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 ^nd preserving the re- 
mains of animals found in these primitive habitations of our Celtic an- 
cestors. 
II. 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 Unio pUcatus) 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 " Systema Naturae," the monarch would 
have been more honoured, and the conferred title of Von Linn6 perhaps 
respected by posterity. Unfortunately for the monarch, his empty title 
is forgotten, and Linnaeus, not Von Linn^, 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^ 
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 fiir 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 
