shell ornaments on boxes, screens and frames were popular in Early Victorian drawing rooms. The founding brothers, Marcus and Samuel Samuel, traded in shells from all parts of the globe, but as a side line they began to deal in the sale of kerosene. With the advent of the new “parafine oil” lamps and, later, the combustion engine, it was not long before they were marketing oil exclusively. Soon afterward their company was merged with the Royal Dutch interests. Until 1904 they used a trademark emblem patterned after the Sun-rayed Tellin (Tellina radiata of the West Indies), but this was later replaced by the now world-famous emblem of the European Jacob’s Scallop (Pecten jacobaeus) . The scallop on the letterhead of the company’s stationery is a fossil species from California.
The 200-odd oil tankers of the Shell Oil Company are named after various genera of mollusks, the first ship launched being christened the S. S. Murex. Aboard each vessel, a specimen of her namesake mollusk is mounted in a glass exhibit case. Naming and securing shells for the first hundred ships was comparatively easy, but recently the choice of new names has resulted in the unfortunate selection of obscure genera based on rare and, in some cases, microscopic species. Some ships bear names based on the same genus—nautical synonyms!
The use of the scallop is a very ancient one. As a source of food and as an eating dish it was used in prehistoric times. It is pictured on the coins of the early Phoenician outpost of Saguntum (now Murviedro, Spain). All through the middle ages the scallop shell was used as a religious symbol, especially in connection with pilgrimages to the shrine of Saint James at Compostella and the crusades to the Holy Land. Three different popes granted a faculty to the Archbishops of Compostella to excommunicate all who sold scallop shells to pilgrims anywhere except in the city of Compostella. Today many of the family shields of England bear scallop shells, indicating that their ancestors made pilgrimages to the Holy Land.
It is interesting to note that one of the earliest shell collections known to us contained a Jacob’s Scallop. This was unearthed from the ruins of Pompeii, together with Conis textile and the Pearl Oyster of the Indian Ocean, in what appears to have been a natural history collection. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that this was the remains of the Natural History Society of Pompeii, of which the distinguished naturalist, Pliny, was probably a member. It was Pliny who first recorded the swimming activities of the scallop, and he observed that it was able to dart above and skip along the surface of the water.
In our modern age of synthetic dyes and highly mechanized textile industries, we little appreciate the part played by dye-producing mollusks in the history of the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean. The power and fame of the Phoenicians, who were the great traders, navigators and
