384 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
of the elongated and hinge pearls is remarkable. All had been drilled with holes 
varying from 1 to fully 3 millimeters in diameter, but generally the larger size, made 
with a heated copper wire in the manner described by early travelers as common 
among the Indians. This drilling was undoubtedly for the purpose of attaching 
them to clothing or belts, as shown by the fact that 400 or 500 had been originally 
sewed upon a rough cloth shirt extending from the waist to the knees of a skeleton. 
Copper plates on the hips had preserved traces of the cloth, and several dozen beads 
were found with cloth fiber still extending through the perforation. Pearls were 
usually placed at the wrists, on the ankles, around the neck, or in the mouth. In the 
Porter mounds at Prank fort, Ross County, several hundred were on copper plates. 
Nearly all, however, are found loose, although some are imbedded in a hard, rock- 
like mass of clay, cemented either by a calcareous solution from the weathering of 
the pearls or by an iron oxide produced by the decomposition of the meteoric iron 
ornaments that were found in such quantities in the Hopewell group of mounds. 
These, like all the pearls found in mounds in the Ohio and adjacent valleys, were 
undoubtedly from the Unios, which were evidently vefy plentiful at the time. Yery 
few of the pearls retained any of the original orient, although -it is possible that by 
peeling them some good unaltered pearl surfaces could be obtained ; but it is more 
likely that either heat or burial in the ground, where they have undoubtedly lain for 
centuries, has destroyed them by infiltration of surface waters through the earth in 
which they were imbedded. 
In the explorations which Mr. Moorehead conducted he found over forty bears’ 
teeth in which pearls had been set, lying near skeletons. The settings were in the 
side or near the base (root) of the tooth. Skeletons accompanied by a large number 
of pearls always have other relics associated with them, such as native copper articles, 
mica, obsidian, galena, hematite, ocean shells, bad-land fossils, and other foreign objects. 
This fact would indicate clearly that the remains thus distinguished must have been 
those of prominent persons. 
At a mound in the Little Miami Yalley Professor P. W. Putnam and Dr. Charles 
L. Metz procured more than 60,000 pearls, nearly two bushels, drilled and undrilled, 
undoubtedly of Unio origin, all of them, however, decayed or much altered and of no 
commercial value. In 1884 these scientists examined the Marriott mound and found 
nearly 100 Unio shells; among other objects of interest were six canine teeth of bears 
perforated by a lateral hole near the edge at the point of greatest curvature of the 
root, and by passing a cord through this the tooth could be fastened to any object or 
worn as an ornament. Two of the teeth had a hole bored through near the end of 
the root on the side opposite the lateral perforation, and the hole countersunk in 
order to receive a large spherical pearl about three-eighths of an inch in diameter. 
When the teeth were found the pearls were in place, although chalky from decay. 
Over 250 pearl beads were found, concerning which they say: 
The pearl heads found in the several positions mentioned are natural pearls, probably obtained 
from the several species of Unios in the Ohio rivers. In size they vary from one tenth inch to one-half 
inch in diameter, and many are spherical. They are neatly drilled, aud the larger from opposite sides. 
These pearls are now chalky, and crumble on handling, hut when fresh they would have formed 
brilliant necklaces and pendants. — (18 Kept. Peabody Museum, p. 449, 1886.) 
At the Turner group, in the Little Miami Yalley, Professor Putnam, exploring 
for the Peabody Museum, secured half a bushel, nearly every one blackened by heat, 
some cracked, and all impaired in luster. Mr. Moorehead took from two hearths 
upward of 100,000 pearls. 
