Note 3 — WAMPUM.

Many writers have asserted that wampum was worked out of the inside of the Great Conque shell. This view is evidently erroneous, as the Great Conque, Strombus gigas [Linn.], is not found on the Atlantic coast, north of Florida and the West Indies, except in the fossil state.

The assertion that wampum is an Iroquois word, meaning a "muscle," is doubtless equally unfounded.

Roger Williams [Key, chap. xxiv], who certainly had fine opportunities for observation, and our other most trustworthy authorities, state that the Suckáuhock was made from the clam shell, and the wampum from the shells of the Periwinkle, and such was unquestionably the case.