Our English tongue is above all poor in words that can be used in the description of works of art. For apt expressions with which to indicate specialities of manufacture, varieties of shape or shades of colour, recourse must continually be had, however unwillingly on the part of the writer, to the French language. But in one case, at least, we have our revenge. We possess in the word ‘bead’[135] a convenient term, of which the exact equivalent, strangely enough, exists in no other language. Nothing can be more inconvenient and more likely to lead to misconception than the use of the word ‘pearl,’ or ‘false pearl,’ in this general sense, and yet no term more definite has been found in either the French or the German language. In Italian the use of the term _conterie_ is confined to certain classes of beads. The only fault, from our point of view, to be found with our English word is that it may be applied to objects made of other materials than glass. A term of very similar origin—‘paternosters’—was formerly employed for a certain class of large beads in France and Italy, but the use of it has never become general. We have seen that towards the end of the thirteenth century the _cristallai di cristallo di rocca_ fell foul of the glass-workers of Murano, and induced the authorities to forbid the imitation of their work in the inferior material. Not the least important of the productions of these workers in rock crystal and other hard stones were the beads for use in the rosaries (to use a word of later introduction)—the _paternostri_. We know, too, that some such prohibition as that referred to was revoked in 1510; and the ground for this change of policy is found in the fact that for some time the Germans had been in the habit of carrying to their own country the ‘canes’[136] of glass, which they there cut and polished to form _paternostri_. These beads, re-imported into Venice, found their way ultimately to all parts of the world. The Venetians, we must remember, at an early date, long before they had acquired territory on the mainland, had established factories at Treviso, at Belluno, and along the upper course of the river Piave. It is probable that advantage was taken of the abundant water-power to establish in these towns mills for the grinding and cutting of their glass. This industry, forbidden for a time at Murano, may have been carried on in a more or less clandestine manner.[137] It was through this country, too, that the German traders passed, and a link between the trans-Alpine and the Italian glass industries was thus early formed. The starting-point in the manufacture of beads is a rod or cane of glass: according as this cane is hollow or solid, the manufacture is carried on by radically distinct methods.