ly used on coats
and waistcoats, where gilt buttons were formerly employed.

The shell used in the manufacture of buttons, studs, card counters, etc., is
the mother of pearl, the Concha margaritifera of naturalists. Five kinds of
shell are employed:--First. The Buffalo Shell, so named because it arrived
packed in buffalo skins; it comes chiefly from Panama, is the smallest and
commonest, and sells to the trade at about 15 pounds a ton.--Second. The
Black Scotch, from the Sandwich Islands, whence it is sent to Valparaiso and
to Sydney, New South Wales, worth from 15 to 30 pounds a ton. The large
outer rim is of a blackish, or rather greenish, tint, the centre only being
white. The outer rim was formerly considered worthless, and large quantities
were thrown away as rubbish. Change of fashion has brought the prismatic
hues of the dark pearl into fashion for shooting-coats, waistcoats, and even
studs. It used to be a standing story with a Bristol barber that a square in
that city had been built on thousands of pounds worth of tobacco stalks,
thrown away as useless, until it was discovered that that part of the plant
was capable of making a most saleable snuff. And so in Birmingham; the
Irvingite Church, on New Hall Hill, is said to be built on hundreds of tons
of refuse shell, which would now be worth from 15 to 20 pounds per ton. The
third shell is the Bombay, or White Scotch, worth from 20 to 50 pounds per
ton. The fourth comes from Singapore, and is brought there to exchange for
British manufactures by the native craft which frequent that free port. It
is a first-rate article, white to the edge, worth from 80 to 90 pounds per
ton. The fifth is the Mother of Pearl Shell, from Manilla, of equal value
and size, but with a slight yellow tinge round the edge.

Pearl buttons are cut out and shaped by men with the lathe, polished by women
with a grinding-stone, and sorted and arranged on cards by girls.

Glass Buttons were formerly in use among canal boatmen, miners, and
agricultural labourers, in certain districts. They are now chiefly made for
the African market. The process of making them and studs is well worth
seeing.

Beside the buttons already enumerated, they make in Birmingham the flat iron
and brass buttons, for trowsers; steel buttons, for ladies' dresses; wooden
buttons, for overcoats; agate buttons, for which material is imported from
Bohemia; and, in fact, every kind of button and stud, including p