Pvn H,i I'UitlS

CARDIUM. 291
humble branch of our national industry, and gives ao
honest employment to thousands of women and chil-
dren. In Surtees's c
History
of Durham '
it is stated that,
besides the home consumption, about £300 is annually
gained in Greatham alone by this occupation. Near
the little village of Penclawdd in South Wales a busy
and picturesque scene may be witnessed towards the end
of autumn or in the early spring. When the tide is
out, nearly all the female and juvenile population are
engaged in raking the sands and collecting
these shell-
fish. The cockles are put into tubs and pans of fresh
water to get rid of the " grit " or sand, and the next
day they are boiled in large caldrons placed in the open
air. The produce is then fished out with sieves, and
after being well rinsed in clean water is carried to Swan-
sea market in baskets poised on the heads of the cockle-
women. Many a drawing in the Water-colour Exhibitions
has been enlivened by the addition of a group thus
equipped and crossing the sands at low water. Immense
heaps of shells are accumulated in the above
process of preparing cockles, and may hereafter give rise
to as much speculation with regard to the antiquity of
the race of cockle-gatherers, as the Danish and Scotch
" kjokkenmoddings " do at the present time. The shells
also are useful. In places near the sea-coast where
ordinary lime is not to be had, or the carriage
expensive,
of it is
there cannot be a better substitute than the
lime which is made by calcining cockle-shells. An
analysis by Dr. Phipson, a chemist of no mean repute,
has shown that they contain more than 90 per cent, of
pure carbonate of lime. They seem to have been con-
verted into rude ornaments by our ancestors ;
son,
in his '
and Wil-
Prehistoric Annals of Scotland,' describes a
cist in which the only relics deposited beside the skeleo2