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UNITED STATES, CANADA AND MEXICO 235
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her
an Iroquois wampum belt, bearing the marks of age, which they
immediately pronounced to have been made after their manner. Although
they had been familiar with Indians, they had never known of their
making the beads. They had always depended upon the trappers for their
market, and related incidents connected with their dealings with "fur
companies," etc. The conch-shell is used also in the manufacture of
"pipes," beads, rosettes, etc. The " pipes " vary in length from 2 to 6
inches, and resemble a tobacco-pipe stem with bulging sides ; those of
6 inches in length are quite rare, and are highly prized. The rosettes
consist of a concentric series of round, flat disks placed on them,
secured one to the other by means of a string passed through the holes
drilled in the center.
The
common oysters (Ostrea borealis and Ostrea Virginica) occasionally
secrete one or more pearly bodies, always dead-white in color. The
reflections produced by their fibrous, radiated structure is similar
to that observed in the common conch. The " skin " of these pearls is
never smooth or lustrous, and consequently they have no value. Rev.
Horace C. Hovey, in a letter to the author states that he had found
twenty-nine pearls in a single common oyster (O. borealis) at New
Haven, Conn. In the Smithsonian report for 1881 it is stated that
Charles E. Ash took forty-five pearls from a single oyster in
Providence Bay. A curiously formed oyster pearl is shown in Fig. 12.
Conch Pearls.—That
is, the concretions found in the common conch (Strombus gigas), are not
nacreous, and therefore cannot be considered true pearls. They are
usually a little elongated or oblong in form, rarely round, and most of
them are very beautiful, owing to the reflections produced by their
fibrous stellated structure causing the light to play over the surface,
but giving a different effect from the cat's-eye or that of
satin-spar. They are almost always pink in color and the fine ones are
wonderfully lustrous.
James
R. Curry, of Key West, Fla., states that there and at Tortugas, fully
15,000 of these shells are used annually for food and for bait, being
sold at the rate of three for ten cents,
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