s of hinge are exhibited, from that of simple tion by a ligament to the most complicated tion. The forms of shells are indeed so vaand many of them so elegant, that a celebrated Conchologist warmly recommends them to entive study of the Architect. In this counowever, no such recommendation is necess many of our beautiful ornaments of stucco, larly for chimney-pieces, are copied from the ve testacea, and are greatly admired.

shells, even with all their beauty and elegance, never have acquired so much importance in es of amateurs, had their forms been as diffiO preserve as the external coverings of the classes of animals. It is both a tedious and cult operation to preserve a quadruped, a bird, ish, as a specimen for the cabinet, and even the task is completed it is but of temporary on. A slow but certain process of dissolution ng on, which, though invisible for a time to the , gradually destroys the finest collection of objects. The very changes of the atmosphere, ined with the attacks of insects, accelerate the uctive process. But with shells the case is very ent. Composed of particles already in natural ination, they do not contain within themselves seeds of dissolution, so that for ages they rethe same. Besides, all that is in general necesto prepare a shell for the cabinet, is merely to ove the animal. When the shell is covered with ign matter, we must wash it away with a brush Dap and water; and it is frequently necessary to p the shell for some time in fresh water, to ext all the salt water which may adhere to it. AfDeing properly dried it is fit for the shelf of the inet, and stands in no need of anxious superindence..

To some, the examination of this department of ence has appeared useless, and unworthy of oc

cupying the time and talent of an informed mi Reasoning with persons of this description is s dom attended with any good effect. Ignorant of advantages which have resulted to mankind from intimate acquaintance with natural objects, which all-perfect Being has created, they know not pleasures which may be thus yielded to man, w was sent into this world in order to examine, admi and adore.

33.pbleCause and support of all things, can we view ALMIGHTY BEING!!

These objects of our wonder, can we feel

These fine sensations, and not think of Thee?

Besides, if we attend to the elegance and simp city in the contour or shape of shells, the richn and variety of their colours, and the singularity many of their forms, and the comparative facil with which they may be collected and arranged, shall not be surprised that they have obtained a co spicuous place in public collections, and have tracted the notice of the curious observer. Rumph is said to have given a thousand pounds for one the first discovered specimens of the Venus Dio The conus cedo nulli, so very rarely offered for sa is valued at three hundred guineas. The turbo s laris, if large and perfect, is worth a hundred guinea the cypræa aurantium, or orange cowry, withou hole beaten through it, is worth fifty: and it has be calculated that a complete collection of British C chology is worth its weight in pure silver.even

But to view shells merely as objects of beau without attending to the animals of which they fo only a part, would be to overlook by far the most i portant branch of the science; and, like the flor to take notice of colour and shape, and neglect attend to those functions, which, while they exc our astonishment, exhibit marks of design. The ex mination of the contained inhabitants enlarges knowledge of the laws of animal life and teaches

ich shell, however insignificant it may seem to ossesses faculties suited to the supply of its I and to the situation which it is destined to y.

Utility of Shells.

are not disposed to rest the claims of the e of Conchology to public favour, altogether grounds which we have now stated. As obof utility to man, shells are eminently worthy of otice. To the savage, shells furnish some of ost important instruments. They often answer e purposes of a knife, and are extensively emd as a substitute for iron: with pieces of the solid bivalves he points his arrows, and forms sh-hooks. The blue and white belts of the ns of North America, as symbols of peace and y in opposition to the war-hatchet, and by which ate of nations is so often decided, are made of enus mercenaria; and the gorget of the chieftain's dress is formed of the pearl-bearing muscle ilus margaritiferus). The military horn of many can tribes is the murex Tritonis; the rare variety hich, with the volutions reversed, is held sacred, is used only by the high priests. The highest r of dignity, among the Friendly Islands, is the mission to wear the cypræa aurantium, or orange ry. And Lister relates that the inhabitants of aragua fasten the ostrea virginica to a handle of d, and use it as a spade to dig up the ground, n when further advanced in civilization, the canaated univalves sometimes constitute the rustic p, while the larger scallops are employed by the y-maid to skim her milk and slice her butter. m the mother of pearl shell many useful and orental articles are fabricated; and calcined shells e formerly esteemed by physicians as absorbents; are still regarded by the farmer as furnishing

a valuable manure. The greater part of the used in America, for agricultural and architectu purposes, is made of calcined shells: the pul streets of Christianstadt and Santa Cruz are pay with the strombus gigas, or great screw-shell; a the town of Conchylion is entirely built of mar shells. The cypræa moneta, or money cowry, for the current coin of many nations of India and Afri and this covering or coat of an inconsiderable wo stands at this day as the medium of barter for liberty of man; a certain weight of them being gi in exchange for a slave'. The scholar needs not reminiscence, that the suffrages of the antient At nians were delivered in, marked upon a shell; all to He whom ungrateful Athens could expel, as he arrot At all times just but when he signed the shell. hilo POP the record of which is still commemorated on derivation of our terms testament and attestat The word testudo or shell is used for a musical strument in poetry, the first lyre being said to h been made by straining strings over the shell o tortoise. ere could not dwell

DRYDI

Less than a god they thought there Within the hollow of that shell, for one stalled That spoke so sweetly. BioThe Hermes, or Mercury of the Egyptians, named Trismegistus, or thrice illustrious, is repo by Apollodorus to have been the inventor of M under the following circumstances: The Nile hav overflowed its banks, and inundated the whole co try of Egypt, on its return to its customary bou left on the shores various dead animals, and am the rest a tortoise, the flesh of which being dried wasted by the sun, nothing remained within the s but nerves and cartilages, and these being tighte and constricted by the drying heat, became sonor

See Dr. Turton's Conchological Dictionary of the British Isl with plates.

ary, walking along the banks of the river, hapto strike his foot against this shell, and was so ed with the sound produced, that the idea of the uggested itself to his imagination. The first inent he constructed was in the form of a tortoise, was strung with the dried sinews of dead ani

There is something beautiful in this allegory, leads us into a conception of the energetic Ts of the human mind in the early ages of the 1, thus directed to a discovery of the capabilif Nature by the fingers of Omnipotence in the of accident. This fanciful mode of accounting e origin of music is thus curiously alluded to in er's Lingua:

The lule was first devised

In imitation of a tortoise' back,

Whose sinews, parched by Apollo's beams,

Echoed about the concave of the shell;

And seeing the shortest and smallest gave shrillest sound,
They found out frets, where sweet diversity,

Well touched by the skilful learned fingers,
Roused so strange a multitude of chords.
And the opinion many do confirm,
Because testudo signifies a lute.

hells, as one of the agents of decomposition and ual dissolution, will afford material assistance ne geologist when he examines into their rapid astonishing powers of perforating and disuniting s of calcareous sandstone, limestone, marble, even the hardest masses of granite and porphyry, rever they come in contact with the ocean; and comparative examination of the different strati tions of marine testaceous depositions, he may tually be led to some important conclusions as ne probable elevation of the waters of the general ge.

rom what has been adduced, it must now be ious to our readers that shells are of considere importance in the arts of life; but the animals tained in these shells are of far greater value. As