BEADS

small perforated ornaments, generally of a round shape and made of gla , but idso of gold, silver, and other metals, paste, coral, gems, . The name, which originally signified 'prayers,' came to be applied to these ornaments, from the fact that strings of them called rosaries have long been used in the Roman Catholic Church to keep count of the nxmiber of prayers repeated. The use of them as ornaments belongs to very early times. Gla beads are supposed to have been manufactured by the Phcenicians more than 8000 years before Christ. Beads have been found in the ruins of A yrian temples, also as decorations of the Egyptian mummies, and in the g^ves of the ancient Greeks, Bomans, and Britons. The manufacture of gla beads was introduced into modem Europe by the Italians, and in the neighbourhood of Venice it is still an important branch of industry. On the island of Murano alone several you sand workmen are employed in this manufacture, and the annual value of the beads manufactured is about £200,000. Birmingham is the chief seat of the manufacture of beads in this country. The total value of the beads imported into the United Kingdom in 1868 was nearly £300,000, but in 1871 it had sunk to £110,000.