5o8 THE BOOK OF THE PEARL
were
obtained for the museum of the Archaeological Society at Columbus.
Among these were artefacts of Lake Superior copper (and some pieces of
native silver), large shells from the Gulf, galena, obsidian, and much
mica, both in "blocks" and cut into ornaments, all showing the same
range of aboriginal commerce as already described at Hopewell. In
reference to pearls, the following are the principal observations :
Beads
made from Unio pearls were very abundant everywhere in the Harness
mound, as also beads of shell. They are found in such position as to
show that they were strung and worn around the neck or wrists. One
burial (No. ioo) had some 2100 pearl beads, all rather small, and some
of them perfectly round. Several hundred were obtained, however, that
ranged from one quarter to one half an inch in diameter. A number of
these are shown of natural size. The larger pearls, instead of being
bored through for beads, are frequently somewhat flattened by
grinding, and then pierced with two holes so as to attach them to a
fabric. Very large ones were sometimes set in copper,—a style of work
never observed before. Mr. Mills says of this: "Large and select pearls
were flattened upon one side by grinding, and then placed upon a
circular disk of copper a little larger than the pearl. The edges were
then turned (up) around the pearl, holding it in place. Not only were
pearls set in this way, but various pieces of shell cut in a circular
form." Fine examples of this unique style of jewelry, of natural size,
and another copper setting of like character, from which the pearl has
been lost, are shown in plates facing pages 499 and 510.
More
curious still is the discovery of imitation pearls, made of clay, and
apparently modeled from real ones as they reproduce all the
irregularities of form of the true pearls. They could easily have been
made more nearly spherical, as the beads cut from shell are so regular
as to look as though made by machinery. These somewhat irregular clay
imitations, found with the genuine pearls, were first coated with a
pulverent mica and then burned so as to preserve a pearly appearance.
Other
forms of art work were abundantly represented in the Harness mound,
such as carvings and decorations in stone and bone; a variety of
textile fabrics, of which remnants are preserved when they were in
contact with plates of copper,, the salts of the metal having
penetrated the fabric and prevented its entire decay ; very skilful
work in copper, and to some extent in native silver and meteoric iron ;
and numerous fragments of pottery, more or less ornamental with simple
impressed patterns. The "culture," as a whole, appears to have been
equal, and very similar, to that of the Hopewell community, and these
