268 
MISSION TO ASHANTEE. 
perhaps not without some reason, that the Gold Coast is the Ophir 
of Solomon." 
The variegated strata of the aggry beads are so firmly united, 
and so imperceptibly blended, that the perfection seems superior 
to art : some resemble mosaic work, the surfaces of others are 
covered with flowers and regular patterns, so very minute, and the 
shades so dehcately softened one into the other, and into the 
ground of the bead, that nothing but the finest touch of the pencil 
could equal them. The agatized parts disclose flowers and patterns, 
deep in the body of the bead, and thin shafts^ of opaque colours, 
running from the centre to the surface. The natives pretend that 
imitations are made in the country, which they call boiled beads, 
alleging that they are broken aggry beads ground into powder, 
and boiled together, and that they know them because they are 
heavier ; but this I find to be mere conjecture among themselves, 
unsupported by any thing like observation or discovery. The 
natives believe that by burying the aggry beads in sand they not 
only grow but breed.* 
* The coloring matter of the blue beads has been proved, by experiment, to be iron ; 
that of the yellow, without doubt, is lead and antimony, with a trifling quantity of 
copper, though not essential to the production of the color. The generality of these 
beads appear to be produced from clays colored in thin layers, afterwards twisted toge- 
ther into a spiral form, and then cut across : also from dilFerent colored clays raked 
together Avithout blending. How the flowers and delicate patterns, in the body and on 
the surface of the rarer beads, have been produced, cannot be so well explained. Besides 
the suite deposited in the British Museum, I had the pleasure of presenting one of the 
most interesting kind to Baron Humboldt ; and I have also sent one to Sir Richard 
Hoare, as it seemed to correspond so closely with the bead which he found in one of the 
barrows, and describes, as follows, in his History of Wiltshire. The notion of the rare 
virtues of the Glain Neidyr, as well as of the continued good fortune of the finder, 
accords exactly with the African superstitions. " A large glass bead, of the same imper- 
fect petrefaction as tlie pully beadb, and resembling also, in matter, the little figures that 
. are found v/ith the mummies in Egypt, and are to be seen in the British Museum. This 
