Among specimens illustrative of native North American arts, as yet untouched by European influence, is the deerskin mantle ornamented with shellwork, recorded to have belonged to the Virginian chief, Powhatan. Of the group of Virginian mantles in Tradescant’s collection there only now remains this shell embroidered one. It is entered as follows in the MS. catalogue of the Ashmolean Museum, in the handwriting of the keeper, Dr. Plot, the well-known antiquary, about 1685: “205 Basilica Powhatan Regis Virginiani vestis, duabus cervorum cutibus consuta, et nummis indicis vulgo cori’s dictis splendidè exornata.” He had at first written “Roanoke,” but struck his pen through this word, and wrote “cori’s” (i. e. cowries) above, thus by no means improving the accuracy of his description. The mantle measures about 2.2^{m} in length by 1.6^{m} in width. The two deerskins forming it are joined down the middle; no hair remains. The ornamental design consists of an upright human figure in the middle; divided by the seam; a pair of animals; 32 spirally-formed rounds (2 in the lowest line have lost their shells) and the remains of some work in the right lower corner. The marks where shellwork has come away plainly show the hind legs and tapering tails of both animals. It is uncertain whether the two quadrupeds represent in the conventional manner of picture-writing some real animal of the region, or some mythical composite creature such as other Algonquin tribes are apt to figure. The decorative shellwork is of a kind well known in North America. The shells used are _Marginella_; so far as Mr. Edgar A. Smith is able to identify them in their present weathered state, _M. nivosa_. They have been prepared for fastening on, in two different ways, which may be distinguished in the plate. In the animals and rounds, the shells have been perforated by grinding on one side, so that a sinew thread can be passed through the hole thus made and the mouth. In the man, the shells are ground away and rounded off at both ends into beads looking roughly ball-like at a distance.