The skill acquired by the primitive artisan in shaping the homely spoon or the rude celt served a good purpose in the more elegant arts, and opened the way to a new and unique field for the development and display of the remarkable art instincts of these savages. It probably required no great skill and no very extended labor to fashion the various utensils and implements of the outer walls of the univalves or the thin valves of clams and mussels; but to cut out, grind down, and polish the columellæ of the large conchs required a protracted effort and no little mechanical skill. Of the various objects shaped from the columellæ, beads are probably the most important; but a large class of pin-shaped articles naturally come first, as they consist of entire or nearly entire columellæ dressed down to the desired shape. The use of these objects is still problematical. As they are found in most cases deposited with human remains, they were doubtless highly valued. They must have served a definite purpose in well-established and wide-spread customs, as they are found distributed over a district almost co-extensive with that occupied by other shell vestigia of marine origin. Let us first study the process of manufacture. A considerable number of the larger species of marine univalves have been brought into requisition. Various species of _Busycon_, _Strombus_, and _Fasciolaria_ offer almost equal facilities; the former, however, seems to have been decidedly the favorite, the _Busycon perversum_ having furnished at least three-fourths of the columns used. This result may be attributed, however, to the fact that, for reasons already mentioned, the _perversum_ was so universally employed for vessels, the axes extracted from these being then ready for further manipulation. The outer case of the shell being somewhat fragile it is probable that the sea has very frequently broken it away, leaving the dismantled columella to be washed ashore in a shape convenient for manufacture or for inland trade. If the demand for these objects was very great, it is to be presumed that on shores where they abound these shells were broken open and the columns extracted for purposes of traffic. The State of Tennessee is found to be the great store-house of these as well as other ancient objects of shell. This is probably owing to two causes: first, that far inland, where they were difficult to procure, and very costly, they were highly esteemed, and hence consecrated to the use of the dead; and, second, the conditions under which they were buried had much to do with preserving them from rapid decay, while on the coast or when exposed to the atmosphere they soon disappeared.