PORT OF LONDON

Hokitika Guardian, 10 November 1930, Page 7

PORT OF LONDON

■H/VLF-HOURS IN DOCK WAREHOUSES. ON THK SHI-XL l-’LOOR AT ST. XA TH Kill XlO DOCK, r l 0 RTOIS E,SHELL. (By A. G. LINNEY in The R.L.A. Monthly). In the Epistle to the Corinthians, the Apostle Bant wrote that “There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial." Substitute the word “marin--” for “celestial” and we may apply the

phrasing in the animal worid, for there are both “marine turtles and turtles terrestrail.” The “turtle terrestrial” is nothing more or less than our old friend the tortoise, remembered, perhaps, because yEsop gave him a good testimonial in the fable where the pooi hare is made to look so foolish. But the land turtle, or tortoise, has as

much to do with tortoiseshell as Black-

pool “Rock” or Southend “.Rock” lias to do with the Rock of Gibraltar. The tortoiseshell of commerce is the arm-our-plating of a sea-going reptile known as tiie hawk’s bill turtle. And, ill order to remove another misapprehension, let me add that the hawk’s bill turtle contributes nothing towards that soup which is supposed to be the diet of aldermen ; to this sustaining liquid all credit must be given to the green turtle.

The main source of supply of the tortoiseshell of commerce is the West Indies, where the hawk’s bill turtle is regularly hunted. The easy part of the task is with the lady, turtle, as when she waddles up some sandy shore of an island or bay to lay the eggs, all that is needful is to turn her on her back and she is quite helpless. The “man of the house” does not venture ashore. Ho stays afloat and has to be harpooned; sometimes the mark of the harpoon is visible when the shell comes to tho warehouse.

The hadxl, armour-plated roof on the turtle’s back is called the carapace, and is made up of a number of overlapping plates. After the creature has been captured and killed, the plates separate when placed in boiling water, and are known sometimes as “sorts.” Round the eaves of the turtle’s roof are a number of little pieces which form a serrated edge—the trade culls them “hoois”—and underneath the body is also a horny protection joined to the carapace by the “hoofs.” The units forming this below-deck covering are classed as “vellowbellv.”

It would appear that Nature herself defies, in the instance of the turtle, the sinister ideas attaching, to the number thirteen, for the total of plates on the hack of all hawk’s bill turtles is precisely and invariably thirteen. A plate, when the turtle reaches maturity, may reach a size of about 8 by 13 inches, and a single plate may weigh more than half a pound.

The Shell Floor at St. Katherine Dock, consists of two large sections, one being given over to mother-o’-pearl

and sundry marine shells and the other

to tortoiseshell. Supplies arrive at one or other of the lower docks and come up to “St. Kitts” by road or rail. Sometimes the shells are packed in large, gunny-wrapped boxes, , though often smaller packages are sent, in which boxes and tins have been used. On. the Shell Floor the other day there was a stack of wooden cases originally holding bottles of a well-known brand of whisky, and other pile was made up of those large biscuit tins which one is familiar. Tuey, too, were full of tortoiseshell.

■ The largest plates (“sorts”) look not J unlike much scratched, slightly trans--1 parent, dirtvish-brown roofing slates. I Some display quite an amount of elasI ticitv, but the better qualities hardly j bend at all. The “hoofs” are small | and rounded, while the pieces of “yel- | lowbelly” are like sheets of very light 1 glue. Colour varies much, the choicest kinds of tortoiseshell having a warm, browny-red and mottled appearance. In preparation for the public sale at the London Commercial Sale Rooms, the contents of the boxes or cases are sorted into grades varying between exceptionally fine specimens and poor quality—substance, soundness, colour

being three determining factors. As regards tortoiseshell, no sale on sample is possible in the same way as for some commodities. Every individual piece has to be examined and some sort of verdict reached by one or other of the ILL.A. employees whose knowledge and judgment have been founded upon years of expei'ietice. There recently retired a sorting foreman who had passed forty years of his life on the Shell Floor. The lots for inspection prior to sale are weighed nett and each lot is placed in a small bin something like a dog-kennel without a top.

At the sale held on September 11th last there were 480 packages offered, the total weight of tortoiseshell being just about five tons—rather below the normal supply.

Normal prices for tortoiseshell range between 10s and 35s a pound, but very fine and beautiful specimens will cause lively bidding, and the price may go up to 250 s or 300 s a pound. As London is the only open mai%et for tortoiseshell in the world, the periodical sales attract buyers from a number of Continental countreis, some being dealers and some manufacturers. In studying the lots before the sale, prospective buyers have carefully to examine the tortoiseshell in view of the particular purpose they may have in mind. Requirements will vary according as to whether the material is wanted for the optician or for the manufacturer of combs and brushes and hairpins. Again it may he the man who makes cigarette cases and holders. " v

Just now the trade is under a cloud. The general situation which has decreased the buying capacity of the public lessens the demand for tortoiseshell boxes, toys, etc., whiel the newer style in which women wear their hair re* quires no ornamental pins or combs. Composition imitations such as celluloid or gallalith also affect the demand for real tortoiseshell.

During the last few years the average nett weight of tortoiseshell offered at the sales has been 26 tons- per an-

num. In 1929 the chief sources of sup-

ply (figures represent cwts.) were : West Indies and Nassau, 208; Sydney, N.S.W., 48; Singapore, 47; Zanzibar, 33; Bombay and Persian Gulf, 30; Mauritius, 20.