Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

This has been the system under which the Ceylon fisheries were managed until lately. For some reason unknown to the public, the government, after a season of unequalled profit in 1905, leased the fisheries to a company, the Pearl Fishers of Ceylon (Limited), for a period of twenty years from January 1, 1906. The company is to pay the government $103,333 per annum and is to expend annually upon the improvement of the fishery not less than $16,666, or more than $50,000, at the discretion of the government. The expenses of supervision and protection by the government must also be borne by the company.

As a result of the first fishery (1906), the company after setting aside $49,628 for depreciations and reserve and carrying forward $77,382, show a profit of $256,960 which affords dividends of 36 cents on ordinary shares and 18 cents on deferred shares, a remarkably good beginning. The government revenue from the fishery of 1905 was $801,882 after the expenses, $73,510 were deducted; over $111,000 more than the profit of 1904 which was the most successful up to that time.

The inspector of pearl-banks anticipated a good fishery in 1906 but was of the opinion that after a small fishery in 1907 and probably 1908 the banks would fail for some years as they have done in the past.

After the pearls are taken from the dead oysters they are first sorted for size. This is done by passing them through a series of ten small brass sieves known as baskets, containing from twenty to one thousand holes. The sieves have twenty, thirty, fifty, eighty, one hundred, two hundred, four hundred, six hundred, eight hundred and one thousand holes respectively. The pearls are then sorted for color and quality, weighed and valued. As with all things, really fine pieces are rare, the great mass being ordinary or poor. Herein lies the attraction and excitement of the business for some will find great gems. One may imagine the keen interest of the swarthy buyer who has parted with his hoards, hoping to find a "pearl of great price" when he washes the lustrous spheres from the putrid mass of decaying fish: the eager search; the joy when his eye lights upon a big, white, shining sphere rising up among the heap of little ones; the growing exultation as he picks it out and with feverish interest rolls it about between his fingers to find it without flaw or blemish, or the keen disappointment should his inspection show, as it most frequently does, that it is full of imperfections.

Hovering about are the buyers for the great Hindu merchants, agents of far-off princes and Europeans, all watching sharply for great finds and ready to enter into the combat of wits which marks an oriental trading.

If one remembers that there are probably twenty-five thousand traders congregated on the hot sands of this far-off shore, the fair dame, whose neck is clasped by a string of these precious globules, may conjure from their lustrous skins, scenes as wild and weird as any fairy tale that set her youth to dreaming.

The pearls are sorted into a number of grades. Those perfect in sphericity and luster are called "ani." Anitari meaning "followers" or "companions," are of the same general character, but poorer in those important qualities. Masanku are somewhat irregular in shape and faulty, especially in luster and color. The poorest of this class, lacking the essential qualities, are separated into another grade and called "kallipu." Next come "kural," double or twinned, and "pisal," are misshapen or clustered. Folded or bent pearls are "madanku," and what we would call "rejection," a mixed lot of all sorts and sizes too poor to include in any of the regular classifications, are termed "vadivu." Seed-pearls, the very small pearls of which there are great quantities, are known as "tul." Many of these are ground to "chunam" or shell-lime, and used as an ingredient in a favorite masticatory.

The assortments being made, they are weighed and recorded in kalanchu (kalungy) and manchadi (manjaday). The kalanchu is a brass weight equal to 67 grains troy, and the manchadi is a small red berry that is of very even weight when full sized, and is reckoned twenty to a kalanchu.

In the valuation of ani, anitari and vadivu, the individual size, form, and color is considered, but the others are simply valued by weight.

The modus operandi of these fisheries like all others managed by Orientals continues much the same from fishing to fishing. Experiments have been made at the Tuticorin fishery with helmeted divers but their catch compared unfavorably with that of the naked natives, who will sometimes under favorable circumstances bring up two thousand in a day. It is said that the X-ray is being used to some extent in the examination of shells and that those found to be without pearls are thrown back into the sea, but it is doubtful if the general use would be practical or advantageous while oysters remain abundant; so far, the use of it has been experimental only.

Fine pearls are found in Dutch India among the Molucca Islands. Fishing is done by the natives, and as they seldom go deeper than ten or twelve feet the probability is that they do not get the finest shells or pearls, for it seems to be quite well established that the shells taken from deep water are larger and more likely to contain large pearls. Whether this arises from deep water being more favorable to growth, or an unmolested opportunity to grow, has not been determined.

Hitherto the Netherlands Indian government has opposed encroachment upon the rights of the natives and colonists, and has patrolled the waters with small gunboats to prevent any attempt by Europeans to fish. But lately concessions have been made to British firms so that shell is being shipped direct to London, and it is now thought that these fisheries will soon rival the Australian. The pearls were formerly bought from natives, principally of the Island of Aroe, by Chinese and Arabs who took them to Macassar. From there they were sent first to Singapore and then to London, Paris, and Amsterdam. Most of the pearls brought to Macassar are baroques, though fine specimens of more regular shape arrive there occasionally. The mother-of-pearl from these shells is of good quality.

Some pearls are found at the Bazaruto Islands, Portuguese East Africa, a few miles from the coast, midway between Inhambane and Beira. A concession was granted to a company about 1892, but bad management, lack of funds and political difficulties, killed the enterprise.

General reports indicate that it is very difficult for any enterprise subject to the officials of this district to succeed. The Bazaruto Kaffirs still fish, but without system or intelligence. They are wasteful and damage many of the pearls by cooking the oyster. The few found are shipped by Indian traders to Bombay and Zanzibar.

Pearl fishing has been attempted on the coast of German East Africa at Zanzibar Island and south, between the Island of Mafia and the main coast. Mother-of-pearl is abundant but few pearls have been found and there has been no sustained effort. There are large coral banks about the islands of the coast favorable for the growth of mother-of-pearl and there is shallow water over large areas.

Good white pearls have been taken from a red mussel found there. South of the Island of Mafia are beds of large pinna shells which yield black seed-pearls. There are pearl-shell fisheries in the Merguian Archipelago and in the government of Burmah and some pearls are found. The banks, scattered over an area of eleven thousand square miles, are rented from the government and rights to fish are sublet on royalty. The fishing is nearly all done by helmeted divers.

Avicula and meleagrina margaritifera are taken off the west coast of New Caledonia. From the former large numbers of pearls are taken, and from the latter, very beautiful white pearls. Fine colored pearls pink, yellow, gray and black are often found in this district. A variety of oyster commonly called shoulder of mutton, and another shell-fish called jamboneau (pinna) of which the pearl is very fine, are also found in these waters.

A syndicate was formed in Paris to exploit these beds and obtained concessions covering one hundred and thirty miles. Owing to the difficulty of getting divers, the waters had not been exploited to any great depth up to 1898, the regular fishings being confined to the shallows of six to seven feet, though larger shells were known to be in deeper water. More systematic work with modern appliances and in deeper waters has since been done with good success, but late reports show an accumulation of shell and indications that the industry has not been profitable.

In 1904 the price of shell (black-edge mother-of-pearl) fell to $250, U. S. gold per ton of 2240 pounds, from $700, the former price, with six hundred tons stored in London, Paris, Berlin, New York and San Francisco, making a prospective loss of $270,000 for 1904. There was an attempt to limit the production by a return to native diving. With dress the output would be about 500 tons for the year, with naked-diving 200 tons less. This would operate against the local government, as it not only levies $38.60 U.S. gold per metric ton as an export duty, but makes a large profit on the diving machines by way of license. The pearl fisheries of French Oceanica therefore face a grave situation.

Pearls are found occasionally on the western coast of Nicaragua at San Juan del Norte. The Panama coast still yields great quantities of pearls as it has done for many years. When Spain controlled the northwestern section of South America with the Isthmus to the borders of Guatemala, under the name of Colombia, immense quantities of pearls were sent home by the colonists.

It is recorded that 697 pounds of pearls were imported into Seville from Colombia in 1587. A large proportion of these undoubtedly came from the coasts of what is now Venezuela. The Panama or bullock shell as it is called, is not of the finest quality and the pearls are apt to be dark and inferior to the Indian pearls in luster as well as in color; nevertheless fine pearls are found there and the fisheries yield a greater average of black pearls than any other. Beautiful iridescent pearls are also found there.

The Pearl islands are on the east side of the Bay of Panama about forty miles from the city. The banks there may only be fished by divers but between Chiriqui and Veragua dredging is allowed. Since the United States government has become interested in this section there is a tendency here to exploit the Panama coasts and companies have been formed in the States for that purpose. The pearl fisheries formerly carried on along the coast of Ecuador about two hundred miles north of Guayaquil, are no longer operated.

On the Atlantic coast of South America the most fruitful pearl-banks lie along the coast of Venezuela and west to Rio Hacha on the Colombian coast. This was the first part of the American mainland sighted by Columbus and the quantities of pearls owned by the natives did much to draw the tide of adventurers which set this way in the sixteenth century.

The oysters are taken from reefs and bars about one mile from shore and about the islands. The principal beds are at El Tirano, north-east, and Macanao, north-west of the island of Margarita. There are fisheries also at the neighboring Islands of Coche and Cubagua. About four hundred sail-boats of from three to fifteen tons, employing two thousand men, are constantly at work in these fisheries.

A French company purchased a concession about the year 1900 from a Venezuelan to fish in this neighborhood. It was to pay the Venezuelan government 10 per cent. of the profits as royalty and use divers and diving apparatus so as to select the oysters and avoid waste of the immature. Fishing by natives is done mostly by dredging with metal scoops. It is estimated that upwards of $600,000 worth of pearls are found about the island of Margarita per annum, most of them going to the Paris market.

Exclusive rights have been granted a Venezuelan citizen by the local government lately to exploit the Gulf of Cariaco for pearls and other sea products. The contract is for twenty-five years. Certain advantages are guaranteed by the government which is to receive fifteen per cent. of the net profits of the enterprise.

About forty or fifty years ago several English companies conducted profitable fisheries in the lower Gulf of Maracaibo and on the coasts of the Goajira territory and Paraguana. They employed Indians as divers. Revolutionary troubles during the last twenty-five years so demoralized the Indians, that the industry was finally broken up. Reports from authoritative sources indicate, that not only could paying fisheries be established here, but that the interior is rich in minerals and precious stones.

Until lately there have been few restrictions upon fishing along the Venezuelan coast beyond a tax of fifty dollars imposed by local authorities upon the buyers and the payment of fifteen bolivars ($2.90) by each boat for a fishing permit at Margarita.

The oysters of this coast mature rapidly and like those of Ceylon live but six or seven years. They are small and the shells are so thin that they can be crushed between the fingers. They are of the Lingah type and are named by some avicula squamulosa. The nacreous lining is also very thin, but lustrous and beautifully iridescent. The pearls run small and very many of them are quite yellow.

Many fine white pearls are found however, though they incline frequently to a waxy luster and are often marred by chalky spots. Great quantities of baroques, notably beautiful for color and orient, are found. Round pearls with a china-like skin in many colors are also quite common. The average size and quality is not equal to those of the Indian waters, though it is much better than is generally credited, as the traders in this country for some inexplicable reason have an idea that Venezuelan pearls are necessarily poorer than others.

This notion has probably been fostered among American buyers by the Parisian dealers who at present well nigh control the output of these fisheries and naturally fear the diversion to a neighboring market which now pays a heavy toll to Paris on pearls taken from this continent. It is true an unusually large percentage of cracked pearls is found among Venezuelans, and they lose perceptibly in weight after being brought from the fisheries the loss averaging fully one-eighth of one per cent., nevertheless many pearls of the finest quality are taken from these fisheries. All pearls are subject to slight variations in weight.

It was from the fisheries of Colombia that Philip II. of Spain received the large pearl of 250 carats, about the size and shape of a pigeon's egg, so often mentioned in the chronicles of precious stones.

The management of the pearl fisheries of the Colombia of to-day is in the hands of the central bank of Colombia which is empowered to transact business pertaining to property belonging to the government. This institution holds a public auction and awards the lease of the rights to fish for pearls, coral, etc., on the Colombian coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, to the most desirable bidder. The lessee must be governed by the rules and regulations laid down by the bank. The lease is for five years and went into effect August 1st, 1906.

New pearl oyster-beds were discovered in 1903 in the Gulf of Campèche near Coatzacoalcos and application was made by a Mexican to the Mexican government for a concession to work them. There are extensive beds, which are constantly fished, along the eastern coast of Lower California from its junction with the United States to Cape San Lucas. La Paz is the principal centre of the fisheries. An English syndicate has a concession from the Mexican government which was lately renewed, for fishing about La Paz. Pearls worth $350,000, among them many fine black pearls, and five thousand tons of shells valued at $1,250,000, were taken in 1904. This syndicate employs all the modern appliances.

Beds are known and worked from La Paz to and about the island of Loreto on the east coast, and at the island of Tiburon over on the East side of the gulf, and from Mazatlan all along the coast of Mexico proper to the boundary line of Guatemala. These beds were discovered by Cortez in 1536 and were worked spasmodically for two centuries; then for a period they were fished so constantly and thoroughly that the market was over-loaded with pearls and the supply of oysters seriously diminished. Of late years fishing has been again carried on systematically and with sufficient judgment to prevent the immediate destruction of the beds as before.

A pearl oyster-bed ten miles long has lately been located at the Punta de Santa Cristoval. The Mexican season for fishing varies in localities from May to November, or June to December. The day's work of the diver commences at near the ebb tide and ends shortly after the beginning of the flood tide, about three hours in all. Much fishing is done by independent naked native divers, in a manner similar to that of the Hindus and Arabs, but some of the large concessionaires supply their divers with helmets and other modern appliances.

Schooners of various sizes having several boats, carry the fishing parties to the banks and the men live on them through the entire season. The daily catches are delivered to an armed boat which carries the oysters ashore, where they are at once searched for pearls. These when found are immediately sorted and valued, a percentage going to the diver in addition to his wages, if he is a regular employee of the Company.

The oysters are found adhering to rocks by the byssus, generally in bunches, hinge-side down, curved side up and the shells slightly parted. The diver cuts them loose with a knife and deposits them in his basket or net. One hundred to a hundred and fifty is a good day's work for a naked diver, but with the appliances now being introduced, a diver in dress can raise fully double that number. It should be remembered that there are elements of uncertainty and irregularity in the catch of the meleagrina. As compared with the enormous and crowded beds of the small varieties as they exist in the Gulf of Manaar and at the island of Margarita, Venezuela, where they can be literally scooped up, the scattered bunches of the meleagrina do not afford easy data for reckoning averages.

On the coasts of China, Japan, Korea, some of the South Sea Islands, the English Channel islands, the Canary islands, about St. Malo on the coast of France, at Queen Charlotte's island and along the coast of California from north of San Francisco to the border of Lower California, at the Cape of Good Hope, India, Australia and New Zealand, a shell-fish is taken which has considerable commercial value and yields pearls to a limited extent.

It is called in this country abalone. In the Channel islands it is known as the ormer. It is the Haliotis or Ear-shell. The Greeks called it venus ear-shell and used it as a food, considering it most nutritious. Old English writers praised it as a delicious morsel under the name of ormond saying that it was bigger and infinitely better than the oyster. This shell-fish attaches itself to the rocks by a flat, disk-shaped foot and must be taken when the tide is low. The fisherman can then insert a knife by stealth under the foot and taking the fish unawares, destroy the suction. Otherwise the hold of the fish could not be broken without destroying the shell. New Zealanders call the fish itself the mutton fish.

The Japanese, Chinese and Indians of the Pacific coast have long used it as an article of food. The shells are valuable on account of the very beautiful nacreous lining which is exceptionally good material for buttons and various ornamental purposes. The lining has an exquisite play of colors in the richest tones of peacock greens and reds. There are about seventy species of the Haliotis and the shells vary greatly in size. The British ormer (H. tuberculata) is of small size, about six inches long and is silvery. The shells are sometimes called in trade aurora shells. After being well beaten to make them tender the animals are used for food.

The ormer or auris marina was esteemed by the ancients as a very sweet and luscious dish. The people of the Channel islands ornament their houses with the shells and farmers use them to frighten the birds from their corn-fields. They string several together and suspend them from the end of a slender pole stuck in the ground. The wind swaying them, makes a constant clatter. The Haliotis iris of New Zealand is green and brilliantly iridescent. A Cape of Good Hope species (H. Mida), under the epidermis is tinged with color, principally orange.

Some of the more beautiful species were formerly very abundant on the coasts of China and Japan, but the constant use of the animal for many years as a food stuff has made them less common there and the Chinese and Japanese now obtain a large part of their supply from California, where the haliotis or abalone, as it is called is taken in great quantities. The two most beautiful species found on this coast are, the Haliotis splendens, a magnificent shell of rainbow coloring in which peacock green predominates, and H. rufescens, the lining of which is red. When found, the latter is usually thickly incrusted and coated with vegetation. The green and red range from seven to ten inches, the latter being generally the larger.

Another variety, H. cracherodii, very dark green or black without, and with no apparent beauty, has a small opalescent bit inside the shell which is cut out and made into articles of jewelry. This is common in crevices of rocks. A variety called bluebacks has a bright clayey blue exterior. The Indians of the Pacific coast have used these shells as material for jewelry and decoration for centuries, but not until the button-makers of Europe and New York began to utilize them did they become an item of importance among the exports of the Pacific coast.

Few pearls are found in the abalone but they yield a considerable number of large rounded baroques and excrescences, rich and beautiful in color and of fair luster, also odd-shaped pieces like blisters matched and joined at the edges. The greens have a bronze appearance and the reds and pinks are often iridescent. Quite a number of good "peelers" are found among them. These are pearly formations which can be improved by taking off one or more of the outer skins.

Pearl-fishing, principally by Greeks, has been carried on about the west and south coast of Haiti, but lately the government has granted a concession to four of its citizens covering nine years with the privilege of renewal at the end of that period. This will prohibit all others from fishing unless they rent the privilege from the concessionaires.

To the south of the Philippines, pearl fisheries were worked by the natives before the arrival of the Spaniards, and the industry is still carried on, chiefly by antiquated methods. The coasts of the Sulu islands, at Jolo and elsewhere and about the island of Mindanao, have yielded many fine pearls and continue to do so. The shells from these waters furnish very fine mother-of-pearl.

All things considered, the largest and best equipped fisheries in the world to-day are those on the coast of Australia. Not as many pearls are found as at Ceylon. The main object of fishing is the shell, which is large, heavy, and furnishes the best quality of mother-of-pearl of the white variety. From Charlotte's Bay on the north-eastern coast, all along the northern coast and around to Exmouth Gulf on the western coast, pearl oysters are abundant. Farther south at Sharks Bay, the oysters are smaller and the pearls, though of good shape and luster, run yellow. Shells from the coast of Queensland are sold as Sydney shell; those from the northern territory of South Australia, as Port Darwin shell, and from there to Exmouth Gulf on the western coast, they are marketed as West Australian shell.

The fishing is carried on by organized companies having capital, and every modern appliance of practical value is utilized. The divers fish with the dress. The usual method of fishing is for a schooner of eighty to one hundred tons to put out with a number of luggers of from eight to ten tons. Each lugger is manned by a captain, a cook, one man at the life-line, two men at the air-pumps and one diver. Each lugger will average half a ton of shells per month ranging from 1600 to 2000 to the ton. The pearls like the shells run white.

The Australians are not only pushing this industry along their own coast, but are extending operations along the islands north toward the equator, wherever it is possible. And wherever they go they carry with them the best modern appliances and methods. Lately however operations have been considerably curtailed in the Torres straits owing to the enforcement of laws for the protection of divers.

Lack of men for diving caused some of the operators to use questionable means to obtain a supply. Boats were sent through the South Sea among the islands and aborigines, Chinese, and even European sailors, were kidnapped and held in practical slavery. Many lives have been lost in these fisheries and the evils connected with the industry became so notorious that the government took action. It is probable that the business will be reorganized and either conducted by the state or under government supervision. Natives are now being trained to use the dress.

Few pearls are found and it not infrequently happens that as many as fifteen to twenty tons of shells are raised without finding a single pearl of value. At this time shells from these fisheries bring from $500 to $750 per ton in the New York market. Helmets have been used to some extent throughout the Pacific for a number of years, but many were crude affairs, carelessly managed and the loss of life was as great as by naked-diving. The training of the natives to the use of the more modern appliances will however engender confidence and the probability is that dress-diving will become general in the south seas wherever the industry is organized.

As a rule the largest oysters and pearls, where there is a calcareous foundation for the bed, are taken from the deeper waters, and it is probable that as modern appliances are more generally used by the larger organizations now taking hold of the industry, the fisheries will be extended with good results in many localities to waters beyond the shallows now fished. More systematic methods will prevent waste and the destruction of the beds.

The English Colonial governments of India are doing much in this direction. By keeping experts upon the ground, they have learned how to fish without destroying the beds, and to fish when it is possible for the oysters to contain pearls. Strict supervision and protection of the beds result in more frequent fishings and greater returns to both the government and the fishermen.

This example is being followed, and pearl fisheries are gradually coming either under governmental supervision or into the hands of concessionaires, whose large investment makes the preservation of the beds a business necessity, whether they fish mainly for pearls or shells.

The best pearls and the largest number are found usually in mature shells which are distorted; it has been stated as a possibility, that in the future some of the new rays will be used in fisheries where the pearl is the main object of the fisher, to ascertain if the oyster contains any before destroying it. M. Dubois of Lyons has experimented with Roentgen rays for that purpose.

As the fish is enormously prolific it is more probable however that effort will be directed instead toward the preservation of the mollusk from the enemies and accidents which are occasionally greater than its productiveness.

One of the greatest dangers in Indian waters to a bed of young oysters is a little mollusk known locally in Ceylon as suran (Modiola). These cluster in masses on the sea bottom and spreading over the surface of the coral, crowd out the delicate young of oysters recently deposited.

The Japanese fisheries suffer from the occasional infection of the waters by a weed, dinoflagellata gonyaulax. It accumulates in immense quantities, causing a wide discoloration of the sea water and is very destructive to an oyster-bed. It is called the red current or red tide. So far no preventive or remedy has been found.

Hitherto the most general and fatal danger to oyster-beds has been the ungoverned extravagance of irresponsible fishers who seek to harvest in the present regardless of the future, but these are gradually being made amenable to restrictive laws as authorities awake to the value of the industry. A greater danger which threatens the unio of American streams, is the pollution of the water by the discharge of the refuse of factories and the sewage of cities into them. A mussel bed will recover in time when denuded by fishers, but sewage and poison kills it out entirely.

Although fresh-water pearl-bearing mussels are found in the streams of many countries, only in the United States are they taken in sufficient quantities to make the fishings important as an industry. They are to be found throughout the Mississippi drainage area and in part of that of the St. Lawrence. Few exist on the Pacific coast and those of the Atlantic coast are generally inferior as pearl-mussels. There are many varieties of the unio which yield pearls. Latin names are given by different writers to distinguish them, but as scientists differ in their classifications, the names are not always uniform and are not sufficiently well established to be useful, descriptively, to the general reader. In treating of the various kinds of pearl-bearing unios of the United States therefore in these pages, the common names by which they are known will as a rule be used with the scientific names appended, as revised by the department of mollusks of the United States National Museum.

From the times of Roman colonization until now, pearls have been taken from the mussels of British streams. There are three varieties of pearl-bearing mussels in Great Britain: Painter's mussel (U. pictorum), the Swollen River mussel (U. tumidus) and the Pearl mussel (U. margaritifera).

The first two occur only in the streams and ponds of England and Wales and the pearls found in them are of inferior quality. The latter inhabits the streams of Scotland and the northern counties of England and to some extent are found in Ireland and Wales also. The shell is oblong, rather flat and heavy and about five and one-half inches long. The exterior surface is rough, and blackish-brown; the pearly interior has a tint of flesh color mottled by stains of dull green. It was from this variety the Perthshire Tay pearls were taken, which gained so much notoriety in the middle of the eighteenth century when some fifty thousand dollars worth were sent to London from this stream in three years.

Scotch pearl-fishing was revived in 1860 and some fine ones were sold to Queen Victoria, the Empress of the French, the Duchess of Hamilton and others. Pearl-mussels have been found in Lochs Rannoch, Tay, Lubnaig and Earn, also in the Don, the Leith and other streams. Some are found in the Welsh streams, and the river Bann in Ireland was noted for the fine pearls found in it. Many years ago there was a pearl fishery at Omagh in the north of Ireland. An old writer claims that Cæsar obtained pearls of such bigness in Britain that he tried the weight of them by his hand.

The fishers wade for them in shallow pools, or thrust sticks between the open valves, or drag branches over them, for as soon as anything enters between the two shells they close upon it at once. The mussels are found generally set up in the sand of the river-bed with the open side, if the current is very strong, turned away from it. The custom of the peasantry is to fish for them in the autumn after harvest.

Pearl-mussels are found also in Saxony, Bavaria, Bohemia, Mesopotamia, Lapland, Canada, Labrador, the Hawaiian Island Oahu, Japan (especially the anodonta japonica), China, the United States and Italy, in the Gwaai and Shangani rivers of Southern Rhodesia, South Africa. Nowhere are they found however in such quantities or in so many varieties as in the United States. The number taken from the streams here of late years has been so great that the shells have largely displaced the marine Egyptian and have affected the demand for the better qualities of South Sea mother-of-pearl. The pearls found in them also have been of such quality and quantity that they now have an important place among the jewels of the world.

Old records and the contents of Indian mounds show that the unio was taken from the rivers by the aborigines for the pearls they sometimes contained; but no wide interest in this possible wealth of the rivers appears to have developed among their white successors until the finding in 1857 of a large pearl weighing ninety-three grains at Notch Brook near Paterson, N. J. It was afterwards sold to the Empress Eugénie of France for $2500. This became noised abroad and immediately multitudes began to search for pearls.

Mussels were gathered and destroyed by the million, few pearls being found. The excitement subsided as the searchers learned how few got adequate reward for their time and labor. They soon began to realize that the finding of a pearl of value is usually preceded by the opening of hundreds or thousands of shells containing none, and that in the aggregate, the shells thrown away were worth more than the few pearls found.

Another pearl hunt developed along the Little Miami River in Ohio from the finding of several fine pearls near Waynesville in 1876. This reached its height in 1878. In 1880, pearls began to come into the New York market from the West and South. Immense beds have been fished in the White, Wabash and Ohio Rivers in Indiana. In the summer of 1889 a number of fine pearls were found in the south-western corner of Wisconsin, in Crawford, Grant, Lafayette and Green counties. Not only were they notable for extraordinary luster, but many were of beautiful color. The sale of some at prices which seemed fabulous to the people of that section, when it became generally known, caused such a scramble for them by the natives that the streams were rapidly denuded of mussels, and that section has become of much less importance than others since developed. Prairie du Chien is the center of the Wisconsin market, from which point the shells are distributed to the button factories.

The following year (1890) pearl-bearing mussels were found in several of the central counties of Illinois—McLean, Tazewell and Woodford, in the Mackinaw river and tributaries, but no discovery equalling that of Wisconsin occurred until 1897 when the Arkansas beds were discovered. A peculiarity of this district is that whereas the unio is usually most abundant in swift clear water having a sandy or gravelly bottom, many are found here in the mud.

They have been taken over a wide territory from the rivers and streams of the eastern half of the state, including the Black, White, Cache, St. Francis, Ouachita, Saline and Dorcheat rivers, and in the valley of the Arkansas. Following this were finds in Indian Territory, Missouri, Georgia and Tennessee, the latter being the most prolific. The finest pearls in Tennessee are found in the fluter, or lake shell, which is the same as the mussel known on the Wabash as the wash-board. A yellow shell is found in the Clinch River similar to the mucket of Arkansas, from which pearls are taken.

Unlike the pearl oyster, the unio seems to be more prolific of pearls in the shallows and riffles near the edges of the rivers. Most of the fine pearls are found between the pallial line and the lip in the free portion of the mantle. Those found within the pallial line, where the mantle is attached to the shell, are seldom as lustrous or perfect.

Pearls are found in many States besides those mentioned, but the fishing is done quietly and in some cases the sources of supply are known to only a few who in the marketing of their pearls carefully avoid giving any information. This is particularly true of some of the eastern states. Streams in the Northwestern section of New York State are regularly fished, but without excitement. The large fisheries of the Mississippi and West are fished principally for the mother-of-pearl in the shells. As with some of the marine fisheries, the pearl is regarded as an extra.

The mussels are taken in various ways. In Canada, boats drag brush and the branches of trees over the river bottoms, gathering the mussels into the boat as the twigs become clogged. In the large beds often found in our Western Rivers, fishing is done wherever possible by dredging. Metal scoops, hand, shoulder and scissor-rakes are used and the mollusks, taken in immense quantities are cooked to open them, then cleaned of the meat which is afterwards examined for pearls. This method is used where the mussels lie in great masses or on sandy bottoms. Where there are boulders or large stones, a great number of hooks are dragged over the beds.

The mussels, partially buried, lie lip-end up and the shell slightly parted. Should anything come within this gaping aperture, the mussel at once closes upon it, nipping on with such tenacity that the hold is not loosed until the fisher draws it into the boat and forcibly releases the hook. It is said the mollusk's shell would remain thus tightly closed for ten or twelve hours. After dragging the hooks over the bed, the mussels are taken off and the process repeated.

Various rough devices are used, the principle in all being the same. One, illustrative, consists of a piece of lead pipe or an iron bar several feet long, from which depend a number of double or triple hooks several inches apart. This is dropped overboard, the rope on which it is hung is fastened to the stern of the boat, and the boatman rows over the mussel bed dragging it after him. Men who dredge for the mollusks are called clammers. Pearlers are those who at odd times fish for the mussels with pearls as the main object. This class is composed of the backwoods natives who live about the streams in which the mussels are found. They are people who usually follow their inclinations as nearly as they can, working only as it becomes requisite to obtain the few coarse necessities of their lives. With them also are small farmers who at seasons when farm work is not pressing, seek the excitement and possible profit of the hunt for pearls.

For all such persons the occupation has a great fascination. The difficulties of following the streams through almost impenetrable surroundings, the coarse fare of bacon, meal and coffee; the long tramps back and forth to their mountain huts, or the exposure to night in the tangle of the woods, have no terrors for them; they are but common experiences.

Few pearls of value are found, but the occasional pearl which each one does get, makes expectation tingle, and hope recounts again and again the great finds which others have made. There are curious happenings which illustrate the uncertainties of the work.

It is told on the Clinch river in East Tennessee that a pearler, having patiently fished all day, examining the fish from time to time as little heaps of them were gathered, without finding even a small pearl, finally decided to quit. He was about to examine his last small heap when a man standing by offered him fifty cents for the lot. The offer was accepted. From the first shell opened, the buyer extracted a ball pearl which was afterwards sold for one thousand dollars. Two of the finest pearls taken one season from the same section were obtained from a heel-splitter, carelessly dug out of the sand by a man wading in the shallows of the river. The heel-splitter is a large thin-shelled variety, so named by the natives because of the sharp, cutting quality of the shell which protrudes from the sand of the river. They rarely contain pearls, but when they do, the pearls are usually fine.

The largest proportion of fine pearls to the yield of any section since discoveries have been recorded, came from Wisconsin, and many of the best of these, especially of the fancy colored ones, were taken from Sugar river. Many of these were exceptionally beautiful in both color and luster and a good proportion of them were also round.

Much is written and told of the marvellous pearls found in our streams worth large sums of money. Such pearls are found undoubtedly but not in such quantities as one might think from the enthusiastic reports current in daily papers. Finds are written up by reporters who know nothing of pearls and prefer to write a readable story of wondrous gems and great values to a statement of plain unvarnished facts. In this the news-gatherer is assisted by some simple native with an eye single to a good price and a capacity for exaggerated ideas of value impossible to Maiden Lane.

It is no uncommon trick when buyers are present, to find again, a pearl, which has been to New York and back and the ruse often succeeds. Pearls are frequently sold at the fisheries for much more than they would bring in the east. In fact it is difficult to buy ordinary pearls at a reasonable price. The natives will sometimes sell a really fine pearl for less than it is worth because they do not understand the relative values of quality; but they usually over-estimate pieces of poor quality.

A large majority of those found in our fresh-water mussels fail in some essential quality. Many are chalky, or lustrous at one or two points only. Others are faulty in shape, or if spherical, deeply pitted. Really fine pieces are usually small or button, and when large, are baroques. Some of the latter are magnificent. Weighing fifty to over one hundred grains, with skins of extraordinary luster and iridescence; white, or of a beautiful pink tint, these strawberry or rose pearls, as they are called, frequently excel, by every standard of beauty, the imperfect spheres which command a greater price in the market because they are round.

The most common variety of unio in American rivers, especially in the Mississippi river, is that known as the nigger-head (Quadrula ebena). It is also the principal species used for button-making.

Similar is the warty-back (Quadrula pustulosa) so called because the shell has a number of warts or excrescences on the outside of the valves. The "bull-head" (Pleurobena Aesopus) is found in abundance with the nigger-head. It has a blackish-brown exterior, presenting several radiating ridges, and a white lining. The two latter are inferior as material for buttons as the shells are brittle. The mucket (Lampsilis ligamentinus) is a large shell, average size 4 inches, has a dark brown exterior and cream-white lining. It is too thin and brittle to make first class material for buttons though fine pearls are sometimes found in them.

The sand-shells furnish good material for buttons. They are long, sometimes six inches, and narrow. They are usually found on sandy bottoms and are said to move from the channel toward the shores in the morning and back in the evening. The most abundant is the yellow sand-shell (Lampsilis anodontoides) so called from its bright yellowish brown exterior. Another kind, the black sand-shell (Lampsilis rectus) has a black epidermis. A smaller variety, less abundant now than formerly, is the slough sand-shell (Lampsilis fallaciosus). These are generally found in coves or the mouths of rivulets.

The deer-horn or buckhorn (Tritigonia verrucosa) is a large variety, sometimes attaining a length of nine inches in the Iowa river, though the average in the Mississippi is about five inches. The shell, as the name indicates, has a rough, warty exterior. The supply is small and uncertain.

Another rare species is the butterfly (Plagiola securis). It is a small, flat, thick shell of fine color, and the valves are butterfly in shape with a reddish-brown epidermis striped by darker radiating lines. It is abundant only in the Illinois and Ohio rivers.

The hatchet-back, hackle-back, or heel-splitter (Symphynota complanata), is a large black mussel having a thin sharp-edged shell, one valve-edge projecting. It yields few pearls though fine specimens are occasionally found in this variety.

The blue-point (Quadrula undulata) has a large, thick shell, with ridges on the exterior, curving round the umbones and extending to the edge. Like the black-edge meleagrina, the nacre at the edge is discolored. In this case by a bluish or purplish tint.

Some idea of the enormous quantities of mussels contained in some of these beds in our western rivers may be gained from the reports of the fisheries in the first years of their discovery. Ten thousand tons of shells were taken in three years near New Boston, Ill., from one bed. Reckoned by the usual average this would mean not less than 100,000,000 shells. In some beds, the mussels have been found several feet deep, the bottom layers being dead.

Notwithstanding the enormous numbers, these beds are often completely exhausted in a few seasons. When the beds are first discovered, men will take as much as 1500 to 2000 pounds of shell each, in a day's fishing. In one hundred pounds of shells as they are taken, the average number of valves or half shells will be, nigger-heads, about one thousand; sand-shells, nine hundred; muckets, eight hundred, which would be an average of nine thousand mussels per ton.

The meat in a ton of nigger-heads weighs over three hundred pounds. This is usually removed by the fishermen by boiling the mussels for ten or fifteen minutes in crude sheet iron tanks when the shells open and the fleshy part falls out or may be easily removed by hand. To show how little the pearls they may contain enter into the calculations of these fishermen, it may be stated here that the shell-buyers pay about twenty-five per cent. less for the mussels as taken from the river than they do for the shells when cleaned.

On the Californian coast when the divers worked independently, they preferred to sell the oysters unopened. They received about $4.50 per thousand on an average for the shells and double for the oysters complete.

The fishing season for pearlers is from August to December. The large operations for shell, in the early days of the industry, were confined to the same period, but of late, fishing is carried on throughout the year, immense quantities being taken through the ice. The shells are better in cold weather, being less brittle than when exposed in the boats during warm weather. Fishing through the ice is very wasteful however, as the undersized, which are dropped back from the scoops and rakes in the summer, when thrown out on the ice are allowed to remain there and die.

The price of shells varies considerably from season to season. An average price for nigger-heads is about ten dollars per ton; sand-shells bring about twice as much, muckets half that price, and the other varieties together will average about twenty-five per cent. more than nigger-heads, though among these the deer-horn is worth about four times as much as the nigger-head.

In the first six months of 1898 nearly four thousand tons of mussel shells were sold by mussel fishermen on the Mississippi. They brought about thirty-nine thousand dollars, 94 per cent. of these were nigger-heads.

The spawning time of the unio varies with different species. In the central Mississippi basin it is normally February, March and April for nigger-head, and summer and early fall for the mucket and sand-shell.

The unio is a slow growing animal. Under normal conditions it takes ten years for a nigger-head to reach a size of three inches; fifteen to eighteen years to attain a shell diameter of 4-1/2 inches. This corresponds very closely with the life of the meleagrina, though the shell of the latter ceases to grow in size at about eight or ten years. After that it continues to lay on thickness up to eighteen or twenty years.

Although the discoveries so far in Africa are unimportant, it is possible, now that the unio is known to exist there, that the streams of that wonderful land of precious things may add a companion gem to the vast natural hoards there of the diamond. In two years succeeding his first find, the discoverer secured one hundred and fifty pearls at an average of one pearl to eight hundred shells.

Authorities tell us that the nucleus of a mussel-pearl is usually the larva of a distoma. Nuclei of pearls vary according to the circumstances surrounding the beds of the shell-fish and those circumstances have much to do with the occurrence of the pearl.

PRICE

Value, except in things which are constant and constantly changing hands, is a matter of opinion. Price is the expression of that opinion in money terms. Except in a few staple sizes and qualities, pearls are affected by so many details which determine their value that it is difficult to formulate rules to correspond and establish a base by which all may be judged.

Shape, size, color, luster, and perfection, afford a multiplicity of combinations sufficient to puzzle the judgment of the most expert, and when to this is added the fact that there is no other one like the piece to be valued so as to gauge opinion, there remains but one finality, the agreement between buyer and seller on a price.

Disregarding the fluctuations of price occasioned by temporary influences and the variations arising from local causes, this chapter is intended to give information of the price of pearls in the United States to retail dealers, and an idea of the relative value of different qualities and shapes.

First it should be remembered that the price of pearls is reckoned by the square of the weight, with the pearl-grain, 1/4 carat, as the unit. Given the price at $3.00 per grain base or multiple, a half grain pearl would be half of $3.00 or $1.50 per grain flat, or seventy-five cents for the pearl. At the same price a one grain pearl would be at $3.00 per grain multiple, $3.00 per grain flat and $3.00 for the pearl. Upon the same basis a two grain pearl would be twice three are six, $6.00 per grain flat and twice six are twelve, $12.00 for the pearl. Or it may be stated thus: multiply the grain number by itself and the product by the base price, as a 6 gr. pearl at $3.00 base, 6 × 6 = 36 × 3 = 108 dollars, the price of the pearl. This rule applies to all but rejections or those too poor for classification, and extraordinary pieces which by their extreme rarity pass beyond the governance of rules. The sign used in quoting a multiple price is a square. This placed after a price quoted means that it is the multiple price per grain, not the flat grain price.

The price of pearls has increased even more than that of diamonds in the last fifteen years. In common with many other things it has risen with the rapid increase of wealth and the tremendous additions to the world's stock of the standard or measure of values,—gold. Beyond this, the demand for pearls, owing to the adoption of them as a fashion in the United States where a large proportion of the world's wealth is being created, has been stimulated to such a degree that the price of them has advanced in a greater ratio to the depreciation of gold and other forms of wealth than most commodities.

Twenty years ago good round Indian pearls up to five grains could be bought for $1.50 base; to-day such pearls would cost $4.50 base and whereas in those days pieces of extraordinary luster were allowed to remain in the parcels and were sold at the same rate with the others, they are now culled from the lots and held for extraordinary prices. Size also now counts beyond the multiple of the square. The quality held at $4.50 base up to five grains costs $6.00 above that size, and at ten grains will bring $8.00 and over.