On the raw materials from the animal kingdom, displayed in the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations / by Richard Owen.

  • Owen, Richard, Sir, 1804-1892.
Date:
[1852]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the raw materials from the animal kingdom, displayed in the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations / by Richard Owen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    products of Great Britain. Pearls, similar to those from the JJnio maM garitifera, were exhibited under No. 41, Sweden and Norway, by M: Torstrup, from Christiana. The smaller kind of pearl, called “ seed-pearl,” is obtained at KurracheJ on the Bombay coast. They are of little value, except to those who esteen them as medicine, viz., the Persians and some of the Hakeems of Indk The oysters producing “seed-pearl” are washed up by the surf-wavel to high-water mark, and are left there as the tide falls. They are gatliere j by Coolies, employed for the occasion, put into boats, and landed a' Iveeamaree Point. There the shells are broken, and the pearls extractecjl under the superintendence of the contractors, who now pay the Julporj Government 40,000 rupees per annum for the pearl-contract. Even tli gleaners who come after them pay for the right of sifting the broken shell in search of any pearls that may remain. Mother-of-Pearl, or Nacre. In the Indian collection were shown most of the skulls which yielJ the manufacturer the fiuest kind of nacre : these are the Meleagrina man garitifera, Haliotis gigas, Haliotis iris, and a large species of Turbo ; whic] shells are known in commerce as flat-shells, ear-shells, green snail-shells buffalo-shells, Bombay shells. The mother-of-pearl is the internal or nacli reous layer of such shells. Dr. Carpenter has detected indications of if minute cellular structure in the nacreous laminae of the Haliotis, which h has not observed in the nacre of bivalves. Fine specimens of some o these shells from Sincapore and Manilla, especially the great Meleagrina and Haliotis, were exhibited by Messrs. Fauntleroy, under No. 135 ; an<j| by Mr. Banks, under No. ‘287, Class XXII., in connexion with the manul facture of mother-of-pearl buttons. Cameo-Shells, Corals. Specimens of cameo-shells (Cassis rufa), species of Cgprcea, and o shells used as ornaments by certain natives of India, with the rude bu; efficient instruments for cutting them, were shown in the Indian collection Shells adapted for cameo-cutting are dense, thick, and consist of three! layers of differently-coloured shell-material. In the Cassis rufa each layeil is composed of many very thin plates — in other words, is “laminated— the laminae being perpendicular to the plane of the main layer: eacl| lamina consists of a series of elongated prismatic cells, adherent by their long sides. The laminae of the outer and inner layers are parallel to tlicf lines of growth, while those of the middle layer are at right angles to them; In the cowreys [Cyprcea) there is an additional layer, which is a duplicature of the nacreous layer formed when the animal has attained its full growth! Descending now to the lowest forms of animal life, and those that link the animal with the vegetable, I ought to speak of the nature and developed ment of those raw materials called “corals” and “ sponges,” which serve for various purposes of ornament and use. But the limits of an evening’s discourse compel me to refer to the works on Zoology, in which their nature will be found fully elucidated. The Great Exhibition was rich in the various calcareous bases or skeletons of the ramified and rooted marine zoophytes, which are sought after for different economic applications.