Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

The yield of fine white pearls in sizes over ten grains is not large and as there has been and is a steady demand for large pearls for the centres of necklaces, sizes from ten to fifteen grains bring from eight to eleven dollars multiple when matched. Egg and pear-shaped pearls of the same grade, from five grains down, are worth twenty-five to thirty per cent. less than round pearls; between five and ten grains ten to fifteen per cent. less, and as they near fifteen grains and over the pear-shape become of equal value with the round.

Imperfections which can be hidden by the setting decrease the price twenty to thirty per cent., and there is about the same difference between button and round pearls, according to the size of the plane. The difference is still greater in the larger sizes. A yellow color reduces the value in the market from fifteen to fifty per cent. according to the depth and quality of the tint. The so-called blue pearls, which are of a dark leaden white, are worth about half as much as ordinary white, and about one-third the price of fine white Indians. These blue pearls must not be confounded with the deep gray, slate, or black pearls, included in the general term black pearls, as the latter frequently command fancy prices.

Salt-water pearls taken from the smaller varieties of the avicula of some seas, though of the same grade in the qualities of color, luster and shape, are nevertheless worth less than Indian pearls, because they lack a certain quality of texture which the latter, together with those of some other waters, possess to an eminent degree.

American fresh-water pearls have been and are lower in price than Orientals. They have however commanded much better prices of late than formerly and are increasing in value. At present they bring about one-third less than corresponding qualities from the seas. There is a greater difference in the price of baroques. Fine Venezuelan baroques from a half to seven or eight grains are worth now thirty-five to fifty cents base.

Some of these when mounted appear like round or pear-shape pearls and are in good demand. Larger pieces can rarely be made to appear other than baroque and do not therefore command as good figures. They seldom bring more than five dollars per grain flat, in sizes from ten to twenty grains. Fresh-water pearls likewise fetch better prices reckoned by the multiple in the smaller sizes, though they are usually quoted by the grain flat at five to twenty-five cents under ten grains, and twenty-five cents to three dollars per grain in larger sizes.

Iridescent, finely tinted, very lustrous, strawberry, and rose baroques of large size, are worth five dollars per grain and very exceptional pieces bring even more. Slugs, or ordinary baroques, are sold all the way from six dollars an ounce to ten cents per grain. Good wing-pearls can be bought at one to five cents per grain; small wings and rejections are sold by the ounce.

Perfectly round fresh-water pearls of good quality and even skin are rare and prices are advancing steadily. Good buttons have advanced fully twenty-five per cent. in the last year. Fine fancies such as were found at one time in the Sugar River, Wisconsin, since the fisheries there have been exhausted, are scarce and high.

The low prices paid by button manufacturers for mussel shells for the mother-of-pearl in them during the past year, has been one of the chief factors in reducing the quantity of pearls found and the consequent increase of price. It seldom pays the fisher to gather mussels for pearls only; it is the steady returns from the sale of the shells which ensures an adequate reward for his labors. Shells that once brought twenty dollars per ton fell during the early part of 1905 to a third of that amount and later went as low as two dollars and a half. They are now going up again.

Many pearls are seriously injured by the practice of fishers who rely upon the sale of the shells for their returns, of throwing the mussels into vats of hot water to open them. The pearls released from the shells fall to the bottom and getting too near the hot iron are killed, which means that the luster is partially or wholly destroyed.

Dredging is now quite common and is doing much to deplete the mussel-beds of the west. When one bed is completely divested of shells, the clammer moves on to another and repeats the process, so that the supply of fresh-water pearls is coming to depend on the constant discovery of new mussel-beds. Unless legislation regulates the industry the American supply will soon cease.

The cheapest fresh-water pearls in the market to-day are the finest. The pearlers along the streams of the west and south will no longer part with the pearls they find to the speculators at the old time prices. In fact they generally want much more than they are worth and often get more than the speculator can afford to pay to ensure a profit when he comes to sell them in the business centres.

But these fishers know little of the merits and value of the finer qualities. They do not yet realize the great difference in value which accrues as the pearl exceeds the average of luster, color, or perfection, consequently the speculator can often buy a very fine pearl for little more than he would have to pay for an ordinary pearl and though he knows that the piece is worth much more than he has paid, and tries to get as nearly what it is worth as he can, both his judgment and disposition to sell are affected by the low price he has paid and the chances are that he too in turn will sell it at much less than its relative value as compared with the ordinary market price of poor or medium quality goods.

This condition will gradually change. As in the past the fisher learned more and more of the market value of ordinary pearls, so also he will learn to know the price of exceptional pieces and to know them when he has them. Even now, speculators hold fine large pearls at high prices because of the ready sale for them in Europe.

It is difficult to compare the price of pearls in ancient times with that of to-day. We make much finer and closer assortments and gradations of quality and the business now is on a more distinctly commercial basis. People generally are better informed and more critical; they are not influenced by wonder, sentiment, superstition and the "Arabian Nights" atmosphere, as much as formerly.

The Orient is not as strange and far away as it was. In the old times, jewellers could and undoubtedly did take advantage of the awe with which things from the mysterious East were regarded, and of the general ignorance, to obtain large sums for very ordinary if not inferior gems. Even in these days, many are influenced more by the source from whence they come than by a critical knowledge of the gems they buy. Some, who would not buy the most beautiful fresh-water pearl, will pay an exorbitant price for one poorer and less valuable because it is oriental. La Pellegrina in the hands of an obscure dealer would be passed unnoticed by many who would be enraptured by a more ordinary gem from a jeweller or person of renown.

It is presumable therefore that prejudice was more influential when ignorance prevailed to a greater extent than now. John Spruce of Edinburgh in 1705 complained that he could not sell a necklace or pendant of fine Scotch pearls in Scotland. He says "the generality seek for oriental pearls because farther fetched," and continues: "At this very day I can show some of our own Scots pearls as fine, more hard and transparent than any oriental. It is true that the oriental can be easier matched, because they are all of a yellow water, yet foreigners covet Scots pearls."

The price in those days was regulated by general appearance and loosely with regard to weight, rather than by definite assortment and the exact system of reckoning by the multiple of the weight as now, for he says, "If a Scotch pearl be of a fine transparent color and perfectly round and of any great bigness, it may be worth 15 to 50 rix dollars, yea I have given 100 rix dollars (about $82.00 U. S.) for one."

In 1862, Scotch pearls sold for about seventy-five cents to ten or twelve dollars each, an extraordinary piece bringing occasionally as much as twenty-five dollars, but after they were brought to the favorable notice of persons of distinction and it was known that Queen Victoria had bought one for one hundred and ten dollars, the price of them quadrupled. In the time of Charles II. of England an Irish pearl weighing 144 grains was valued at two hundred dollars. In London during the early part of the nineteenth century, pearls from Panama of good size and quality brought about four dollars per grain.

About 1865, fine oriental pearls were sold in London for $1.25 to $1.50 per grain in sizes up to three grains. Over that the price increased gradually with the size so that five grainers were worth about $2.50 per grain; ten grainers, $5.50 per grain; twenty grainers $13.00 per grain and thirty grainers about $17.00 per grain. If their fine grade equalled ours, there has been a remarkable advance in the last forty years, as fine oriental round pearls of thirty grains to-day, are worth in the United States $240.00 per grain flat.

Up to this time and after, prices were quoted very generally by the carat. Later, the method of reckoning by the square or multiple became more general, and the price went to about two dollars per carat, in London, or fifty cents per grain base for ordinary sizes, the larger ones being valued by the piece according to the individual rarity and particular qualities, as before. At the Navigator's islands in 1858, fine round pearls of one to two grains were valued at about fifty cents per grain, the price increasing until those of twenty grains were considered worth twenty dollars per grain. Second class pearls under one grain, averaging half a grain, were sold for about five cents a grain. The same grade about nine grains average, were worth about sixty-five cents per grain.

A third and fourth grade brought about twenty-five and fifty per cent. less respectively. These prices, compared with those of London, indicate that fine, large, round pearls commanded better prices then in the East than they did in Europe. Seed pearls sold at Tahiti for ten to fifteen dollars per pound. The island of Labuan, a British possession in the East Indian archipelago, shipped pearls to Singapore in the sixties at an average price of ten to fifteen cents per grain. In 1871, 35 ounces of pearls shipped from Guayaquil were valued at $100.00 per ounce.

As in former times, at many places where the fishing is done by independent naked divers, especially among the remote islands of the South Sea, there is no grading of pearls or definite ideas of value. The natives dispose of their pearls, as they are able, to traders, often for a very small price. It is so to-day at many points in the Sulu archipelago from Mindanao to the Tawi Tawi islands. The smaller established fisheries of the seas east of China assort roughly and sell in bulk to buyers from neighboring trading centers.

The output of the large fisheries is practically controlled by the great merchants of neighboring cities who know the methods and intricacies peculiar to the localities. For instance, the pearls of Ceylon go to Madras, and Bombay handles the bulk of those from the Arabian coast and the Red Sea. Lower California pearls are marketed chiefly at La Paz. Those from Venezuela are shipped principally to Paris and definite figures cannot be obtained. A few are brought to the United States direct from Venezuela, chiefly by Syrians who barter for them with the independent divers. These traders have no knowledge of market rates for assorted goods but sell them in mixed lots for as much as they can get.

The price of pearls of the first grade, in Ceylon in 1904, weighing four grains and upwards each, was about $5.00 per grain. At Macassar, prices for the irregular shaped pearls of the Dutch Indies ranged from twenty-five cents to $1.25 per grain base according to quality.

At the Ceylon fisheries, two-thirds of the oysters taken have been the government's share. These were auctioned off daily. The prices varied considerably, not only from fishing to fishing, but daily during the season. If the oysters sold one day, yielded well, prices went up and vice versa. In 1860, at the beginning of the Tinnevelly fishery, they realized Rs 15. ($7.50) per thousand and rose later to Rs 40. ($20.00). In 1861 on the contrary they sold in the early part of the season for $35.00 to $40.00 and fell to $20.00, at one time touching $8.50.

In 1871, the Tuticorin catch brought a little over $40.00 per thousand average. The average price paid in 1858 at the Ceylon fisheries was a little less than ten dollars, and as the pearl yield was good, the speculators made enormous profits. In consequence, the average of 1859 went up to $22.50, the oysters bringing at one time during the season as much as $42.00; 1860 realized an average of $66.00, the highest price paid during the season being $90.00.

The fishery of 1863 though it realized more for the government on account of the large catch, brought an average of $33.50 per thousand only. In 1874 the oysters brought about $40.00 per thousand. Of late years the average has been less, ranging from $12.00 to $14.00 though at times double that price has been paid.

The pearls found in the oysters came quickly into the hands of Hindu merchants who assorted them and shipped a large part to Europe at prices much less than those which rule in the United States, though they usually made a good profit over cost. With the leasing of the Ceylon fisheries much of this speculative business will undoubtedly be eliminated and the pearls marketed at more regular prices.

At fisheries where mother-of-pearl is the chief factor of the industry, it is difficult to get statistics of the number or value of the pearls found, but in a general way India governs the market. Prices in other sections adjust themselves to Madras and Bombay with such modifications as quality and place would naturally make.

Mother-of-pearl shell varies in price from $250.00 to $500.00 per ton for Mexican to $700.00 to $800.00 per ton for the white shell of Australia and the South Sea.

IMITATION AND DOCTORED PEARLS

In common with all other precious things, pearls have been long imitated. The early method of making imitation or "mock-pearls" as they were called, was to cut them out of the mother-of-pearl and polish them. Another crude way was to make solid beads of glass containing various ingredients which gave them a slight similarity to the nacreous luster of the pearl. Beads of gypsum or alabaster were soaked in oil and coated with wax. The scales of the bleak fish dissolved in liquid ammonia or vinegar, was also used for covering beads, the solution imparting a somewhat pearly appearance.

To coat one thousand ounces of glass beads, a French manufacturer used three ounces of fish-scales, one ounce white wax, one ounce pulverized alabaster and half an ounce fine parchment glue. Another made beads of opal glass which he covered with several layers of isinglass; over this was laid another coating of a mixture of spirits of turpentine and copal, and a fat oil to exclude moisture from the isinglass, following it with a thin layer of tinted enamel to give resemblance to the orient of the pearl.

Some claimed that the best artificial pearls were made from pulverized pearls. Seed pearls or valueless baroques were ground to a fine powder, soaked in lemon-juice or vinegar and mixed with gum tragacanth. The paste after being shaped and partially dried, was then enclosed in a loaf and baked in an oven. The luster was obtained by a final coating of fish-scale solution. A lighter and better imitation was made by blowing hollow glass beads. The inside surface was covered with a preparation from the fish-scales, after which the bead was filled with wax. This method continues in use to-day.

The fish-scale solution used is a guanine, the mucus which lubricates the scales of the bleak fish (alburnus lucidus). The white scales of the fish are carefully scraped into a horse-hair sieve over a shallow tub of fresh water. The first water is thrown away. The scales are then washed and pressed. The mucus sinks to the bottom and is gathered as an oily mass, very brilliant and bluish-white. This is packed with ammonia in tin boxes and sealed for shipment. It takes about 20,000 fish to make one pound of the mucus.

A cheap imitation pearl is made of opal glass, a bluish-white milky appearing material, to which a pearly effect is given by treating it with fluoric acid. Imitation black pearls are made from hematite, but as they require careful finishing to hide the metallic luster and are much heavier than pearls, they are seldom used.

The Chinese and Japanese have been much more ingenious in their methods and have long produced, with enforced aid from the animal, imitations which are in part real pearl. The former insert in the Chinese pearl-mussel (anodonta herculea) small figures of Buddha upon which the fish proceeds to deposit its nacre. When they are coated, which occurs in from one to two or three years, the pearly figures are extracted and sold to the devout.

The Japanese do more. They attempt to produce a marketable gem and have so far succeeded that a considerable number have been sold of late in the United States and in many cases the public buy them not knowing that they are an artificial production. The base upon which the nacre is deposited appears to be composed of a substance resembling porcelain shaped like a low dome hollowed out on the under side and having a hole in the centre of the cavity.

As there is no nacre on the under side, it must, when the button is placed in the mussel, be thereby protected from the action of the fish except at the edges where the nacreous deposit probably joins it to the shell but in such a manner that it can be easily detached. The pearl covered button is then fitted to a piece of polished mother-of-pearl of the same exterior size and shape and the two are neatly joined, forming a double low domed piece of pearl on one side, and mother-of-pearl on the other. These Japanese pearls as they are called, when mounted in a setting constructed to hide the under side, have the appearance of imperfect spheres of natural pearl.

The beds where the culture of these artificial pearls is carried on, are situated in the Bay of Ago, a few miles south of the Temple of Ise, in central Japan on the Pacific side. It is a quiet piece of water, in a coast broken by numerous inlets and coves. A little north of the centre of the bay is a small island called Tadoko where the necessary buildings and the men connected with the industry are. Around the island and near it, about 1,000 acres of sea bottom are leased and used for the pearl oyster cultivation. The water is about five to seven fathoms deep.

The oyster used is the one common to the waters of Japan, the Avicula martensii Dunker. In May and June, stones weighing six to eight pounds are scattered over the bottom of the sheltered shallows which run up into the land, where the spat is collected. The breeding season is in July to August and in the latter month very tiny shells attached to the stones by the byssus may be seen already.

The number increases as the season advances until in November, in order to protect the young fish from the approaching winter cold, the stones lying in very shallow water are removed with the adhering oysters to deeper water—over six feet. After three years the oysters are taken out and the nuclei of the culture pearl inserted. This done, they are spread over the sea bottom, about one to every square foot and left undisturbed for four years. They are then taken out and opened and both the culture pearls and whatever natural pearls there may be, are harvested. At present, upwards of a quarter of a million oysters are treated annually.

Experiments are being made constantly, in the United States and Europe, to improve upon the hollow glass bead lined with fish-scale but so far without success. The finest of these imitate the natural pearl very well and if finely mounted similar to the genuine, will deceive many while worn. Closer observation will reveal the glassy shine of the surface and it will be found under the loup to contain numerous small holes. The specific gravity is also less.

One finds occasionally in lots, a mock-pearl which has been cut and polished from the mother-of-pearl, but imitations of this character are scarce and find no place in the market. The few made are found usually in parcels of fresh-water pearls and are put there by unscrupulous dealers, as also are hematite balls and even buckshot, to be sold with the lot by weight as genuine pearls.

Since the price of pearls has advanced so rapidly, much ingenuity has been shown in the improvement of poor pearls. Button pearls grown to the shell are broken out and the under or flat side carefully scraped and smoothed to hide the irregular lines of juncture between the pearl and the shell. Protuberances on the surface of round pearls are scraped off and the broken skin edges smoothed down so as to be unnoticeable to the naked eye.

In a like manner chalky rings and spots are toned down. Surface cracks are filled by soaking the pearls in a solution and if the pearl has been pierced, interior cracks can also be rendered unobservable. A serious objection to pierced pearls arises from the ease with which interior defects can be doctored where the skin is pierced and a boring made through the nacreous layers. Not only are cracks made to disappear, but coloring matter can be introduced between the skins. A white pearl of very poor color can by such means be changed temporarily into a black pearl which will command a fancy price. This illegitimate doctoring of pearls, whereby defects are hidden and a fictitious appearance of quality imparted to last long enough to make sales at exorbitant prices, should not be confounded with the legitimate improvement of pearls which is now growing to be an industry of some importance. Experts are now able by careful manipulation to restore to some extent the luster which has been lost by wear or age.

Formerly this was done by skinning the pearl, _i.e. _, removing the outer skin by peeling it carefully off with the edge of a sharp knife, an unsatisfactory method at best, as the under skin may not be good and if all the outer skin is not taken off, the broken edges of the layers composing the skin, mar the luster and color when the pearl is worn. Few also succeed in removing a skin without scratching the new one disclosed by its removal.

Pearls having a decidedly bad outer skin with a good one under it, can only be materially improved by removing the bad skin, but owing to the liability of finding equally bad imperfections underneath, or irregularities which would necessitate the removal of several skins with a consequent loss of size and weight, pearls with minor imperfections or lack of luster are now slowly rubbed between the fingers, the abrasion being assisted by various substances which differ with the judgment and experience of the operator, the preparation being in all cases kept secret by the expert using it. Many fine pearls which have lost their pristine luster are now considerably improved by this method, and without the dangers involved and the necessary loss of weight, consequent on peeling.

Large numbers of poor or imperfect pearls are scraped or otherwise doctored by the traders and speculators at the fisheries. These men acquire such pearls at a slight cost, and by various methods fix them so that by mixing them in lots with good pearls, they often make large profits. They also mix in many cracked pearls. This is done more often at Margarita and the other Venezuelan fisheries where the proportion of cracked pearls is greater than in the Indian and South Sea fisheries.

The skins of a pearl may also be removed by the application of weak acids, but this method requires careful and expert handling or the acid will act irregularly and leave the surface, if improved in luster, uneven and pitted.

Few important fresh-water baroques and irregular pearls leave the west without receiving the attention of the speculators through whose hands they pass, and the scraping is often very roughly done. Rough and discolored projections are broken or filed off and then scraped over with a knife edge. While fresh, the broken skin edges left thus will often pass unnoticed by a careless buyer, but they become discolored and dead later. Unless one buys of a dealer in whom implicit confidence may be placed, not alone for honesty but for his knowledge of pearls, it is better to examine all pearls under a glass before purchasing.

As many persons both in the trade and out of it, are not sufficiently familiar with pearls to be quite sure of their ability to detect the genuine from fine imitations, the following points of difference will be of service. All imitation pearls made of some solid material are heavier than the genuine and lack the pearly characteristics of the fine imitations even. If made of solid glass without acid finish, they are shiny and too poor to require a second consideration, if acid finished they have a "ground-glass" appearance which is unmistakable. If made of other material of a vitreous nature, they are heavier than pearls, dull in luster or without luster, dark in color and unmistakably lacking in pearly characteristics. The only dangerous imitations are the Japan culture pearls and the hollow, glass bead-pearls. The former may always be recognized by the mother-of-pearl back, the latter by various signs.

All these hollow glass beads, have one or two holes. They are coated on the inside with fish-scale solution and filled with wax. Some are treated with acid or sand-blasted to tone down the shiny, glassy appearing surface, and to hide the blow-holes in the glass. The effect is quite pearly, but the color is somewhat darker and they show some iridescence. Without the surface treatment they are more shiny and under the loup one will discover the small blow-holes peculiar to surfaces which have been molten.

The rims of the holes have a smooth, rounded, congealed appearance, whereas holes in pearls have a rough, square, chalky edge. On looking diagonally into the hole of a glass bead, the glass will appear as a dark ring against the wax filling, and where there are two holes, one will almost invariably have a ring in the glass, a short distance from and around it. The surface over the ring is smooth, though it looks as if it were ridged; the ring is in the glass, not on it.

These hollow-blown glass pearls are lighter than the real pearls also. There is one never failing test however which discovers even the best of these most dangerous imitations. Drop a small spot of ink from the point of a pen upon one, and hold it between the eye and the light, when two spots will appear, the one nearest to the eye being a reflection from the inner wall of the glass resting against the wax, of the actual ink spot on the surface. The duplicate spot will be lighter in color than the original. On a real pearl there would be no such reflection, nor would it appear on a solid bead imitation, but as before stated, the weight of the latter betrays them, as they are heavier than the real, nor do they look as pearly, and on holding them between the eye and light they do not show the translucency at the edge of the circumference peculiar in a more or less degree, to the gem.

FACTS AND FANCIES

In ancient days there was a belief in the east that at the full of the moon the pearl-oyster rose to the surface of the sea and opened its shell to receive the falling dew-drops. These congealing, hardened into pearls. Similarly, the natives of India believed that Buddha in certain months showered upon the earth, dew-drops from heaven, which the oyster, floating on the waters to breathe, received and held until they hardened and became pearls. These poetical imaginations of the Orientals were carried west with the pearls. Poets embodied them in verse. Prose writers, losing the poetry of the fable, trimmed them to the bare statements of impossible facts. An English writer early in the eighteenth century speaking of the mussels in the streams of northern England said that "gaping eagerly and sucking in their dewy streams they did conceive and bring forth a great plenty of pearls."

Later writers also attributed the origin of pearls to the reception of raindrops from heaven by the oyster, and one gravely asserted that the fishermen always found more pearls after a season of heavy rains. He did not state that the oysters rose to the surface of the sea to receive the raindrops, neither did he explain how these drops from heaven passed through the brine to the oyster inviolate. Pliny was more definite; he stated that the quality of the pearls varied with that of the dew from which they were formed and were clear or turbid as it was. The pearl would be pale-colored if the weather was cloudy when the dew fell into the shell, and large if the dew was plentiful. Thunder during the reception of the drop resulted in a hollow pearl and if lightning caused the shell to close suddenly the pearl would be small.

The people of Java and Borneo had a belief which should have been yet more difficult to acquire. They asserted that the pearls themselves breed and increase in number if placed in cotton. Clusters of twinned pearls were said to be produced thus, and it is related that some had the audacity to sell breeding pearls claiming to distinguish the male from the female. This fable also travelled west and was received by the credulous. M. S. Lovell in his "Edible Mollusks" says, "A Spanish lady informed a friend of mine that if seed-pearls were shut up in cotton-wool they would increase either in size or in number."

To this day the ancient superstition, or belief, is believed not only by sea-board Malays, but by Europeans, and there are those who claim to own breeding pearls and to have bred from them. The pearls are placed in a box with a layer of cotton-seed and a few grains of rice, under and over them. The box is then closed and in a year, if one account given is a fair statement of average results, one may look for a four-fold increase, though the children will not be as large as the parents. Some of them may be as large as a pin head. The rice will look crumbly and worm-eaten.

Another breeder of pearls says that the breeding pearls themselves grow in size and if the box has been kept undisturbed, there will be found with them at the end of the year others of various sizes, some almost microscopic. A year later these would be larger. It is also said that when a pearl is about to breed, a small black speck makes its appearance on the surface, and that during the period of breeding the pearl changes its shape from a sphere to an irregular ovoid, and develops layers of scales on the surface visible to the naked eye.

After a time, the breeding pearls change their orient to a dirty white, the scales having peeled off. In all cases the rice looks as though some beetle had taken a circular bite out of the end of each kernel. Somehow a perusal of the accounts of the remarkable results, leaves the reader with a conglomerate impression of transformed rice and imagination.

Nevertheless, the breeding of pearls in cotton-wool or cotton-seed with rice, is asserted and believed, and the methods by which the wonder is accomplished may be had with great circumstance and some variations from those who have experimented. No greater evidence exists of the child-like faith of people in the old times than the incredible stories about precious stones which were current in those days.

It is equally wonderful that although it took centuries to disprove them, they received credence for more centuries after they were shown to be impossible and one hears those same delightful fairy stories about angel's tears, drops of dew from heaven, raindrops, etc., seriously quoted in this matter-of-fact land to-day, often by people who after a moment's thought would become conscious of their fallacy.

But romance abhors reason, and though oysters cannot rise to the surface of the sea, nor raindrops pass immaculate through the ocean to the gaping mollusks, nor the downpour of one season increase the yield at once of things which are the growth of years, there will long remain some who will refuse the dictum of the biologist, that unless the dews of heaven and the tears of angels carry much lime in solution, the calcareous surroundings of the oyster's bed must have more to do with the genesis of the pearl than anything dropped into the ocean by the clouds above it, and will still cling to fancy in the face of fact. Meantime the priests of Buddha exact charity oysters from the fishers of their faith, that the god thus propitiated may cause the oysters to yield more pearls.

A question often raised, and which by its periodical revival seems to be a favorite with newspapers and magazines, as well as, to the general public, is, "Do pearls live and die?" It originated probably in observations of certain changes that occasionally take place in pearls which could be readily construed by a speculative or imaginative mind to mean death. Sometimes with pearls the brilliancy of youth fades and passes and the clear skin of early days takes on the hue of age.

If now a ready pen waited on fancy to state the facts it would establish an imaginative theory for centuries, for like gossip, a thing once printed in a book will long pass on unquestioned and be quoted or re-stated many times. There are pearls which for certain qualities invite as a descriptive term the word live. There are others which by comparison appear, and are described, as dead. Then there are others that lose by untoward circumstances the live qualities they once possessed and without dying become dead pearls. The calcite carbonate crystals of which they are formed dissolve in acids and are affected to a certain extent by the acidity of the excretions of the human skin, sufficiently in some cases to destroy, or at any rate dim, their luster.

Gases in the atmosphere, sudden changes in temperature, heat, and various other influences operate more or less in the same direction. The chemical changes thus produced might with poetic license be called the death of the pearl and in a sense the term would be true were the whole pearl involved, but as a rule these misfortunes affect the outer skin of the pearl only, so if that dies death is but skin deep, a live pearl remaining beneath it.

As life and death means the segregation of particles into a compact individuality and their final dissolution, pearls like all other things in the restless economy of nature live and die, but the loss of some of its native charms by the gem is not more a sign of death than the rougher cuticle of a weather beaten sailor with which exposure has replaced the smooth skin of the boy.

Nevertheless the idea of death coming to the pearl fascinates and enterprising writers succeed in frequently placing very interesting and readable articles before the public which incite the wonderment of the reader and perpetuate the impression that this beloved gem is some sort of a living creature subject to human vicissitudes. Lately a story appeared in current publications which told how the pearls of a lady's necklace sickened and lost their beauty. Much distressed she carried them to the expert dealer of whom she bought them who gravely advised her to let her maid wear them whereupon, they recovered from the illness and their lustrous beauty was restored.

Twentieth century versions of fables older than this era are common; shrewd traders and writers use them, nor are they always careful to attach the fable to the particular gem to which, by right of ancient usage, it belongs. The magical loss of color in the presence of impending danger to its wearer is the ruby's prerogative, but, though pearls may lose their charms by exposure to heat, gas and rough usage, the wily orientals of remote or later ages provided no traditional recovery more wonderful than the prosaic method of feeding them to fowls and cutting them out of the gizzard an hour or two later.

The pearl is generally considered to be the emblem of innocence and purity. A pretty fashion in vogue among parents who can afford it, is of giving a pearl to each of their daughters on their birthdays. These are carefully matched and strung so that the string grows to a necklace for maturer years.

Along with the emblematic idea and the fanciful notion of their origin, there comes to us from the old days a superstition concerning pearls which probably grew out of the statement that they were the congealed tears of heaven. It was supposed that they brought tears to their possessors. The idea originated probably about a thousand years ago in western Europe. It did not exist in Rome during the time of the Cæsars for the pearl was then the sign of power and affluence and was coveted by men and women alike and it remains a most popular gem in Italy to-day.

This absurdity has been kept alive by stories of prominent persons in whose experience occurrences seemed to confirm the claim. The Queen of Henry IV. of France dreamt that her diamonds were turned to pearls the night previous to her husband's assassination by Ravaillac. The consort of James IV. of Scotland dreamt of pearls three nights in succession before the disastrous battle of Flodden Field in which he lost his life. These and similar stories which appeal to a love of the mysterious and wonderful have been perpetuated by writers of books, so that even to-day there are women who coveting pearls still fear to own them.

But to be out of the fashion is more dreadful to women than tears, so it has come to pass that with the increasing vogue of the pearl, less is heard of the superstition and it is dying, not of age or the contempt of knowledge, but by the potency of fashion.

A story already referred to in these pages, that has been current for over two thousand years during which time it has been mentioned by almost every writer about pearls, deserves, for its antiquity and absurdity, consideration here. It is of Cleopatra and the pearl worth upwards of three hundred thousand dollars she is said to have dissolved in wine to drink in costly fashion to her lover. This was, of course, impossible. She may, with the help of the wine have swallowed it like a pill or, as Sir Thomas Gresham did later, have ground it to powder and mixed it with the wine she drank, but to dissolve a pearl of great size as one of this value would be, was a conjurer's feat.

The lime of which a pearl is chiefly composed will dissolve in acid, but the gem although softened, would remain a pulpy mass held by the organic matter interwoven throughout the strata of calcium carbonate. Whatever she really did, or in what form she swallowed the pearl, if she did so, Cleopatra and her pearl are better known to-day to the general public than either of her Roman lovers, and they will probably be handed down through many generations yet to come.

To exaggerate is a common tendency. Dealers usually place inordinately high figures on exceptional gems which they do for several reasons: the great price excites wonder and interest; it makes a large profit possible; it permits considerable reduction to a shrewd buyer; and it pleases the person who finally purchases it, for if the sale is made public the first asking price is usually given as the value of the jewel, and sometimes even that is exceeded. The buyer prefers to have it so because it increases the importance of his possession in the public mind and paves the way for a good price if he too at any time should wish to sell.

One reads constantly in the daily papers of sales where the prices given are enormously beyond the sums actually paid, for the public like big figures. Reporters know this and do not fail to supply the demand. For instance: in an eastern city of the United States, a man while at a lunch counter found a pearl in the oyster he was eating. He took it at once to a jeweller of his acquaintance who handed it to a New York pearl-dealer present and asked him to value it.

The pearl was large and round but, like all such formations in the edible oyster, quite devoid of the nacre which constitutes a true pearl. The dealer so informed them, adding casually, "If it were a true pearl it would be worth several thousand dollars." An evening paper that day had a half column story about it with, "A pearl worth five thousand dollars found in an oyster at a lunch-counter," in black head-lines, and the morning papers of the following day enlarged the story by adding fanciful details.

Undoubtedly in the old days of license when immense fortunes were made not only in trade but by piratical wars, large prices were paid by fortune's favorites for pearls but it is extremely probable that report, bruited from mouth to mouth, exaggerated even more than the printed fables of our times do. It is doubtful if the pearls of ancient chronicles were as fine, judged by the standards of to-day, as we imagine or that all of them were as large as reported. The public were more ignorant about them than now and also more credulous and these invite exaggeration.

Very large pearls which for perfection of shape, luster and freedom from flaws are beyond criticism, are the most rare of all gems. The conditions under which a pearl grows, makes large size, without the development of irregularities in the form and imperfections in the skin, almost impossible; and as they all grow in the same way, by the same process, out of the same sources of supply and subject to the same limitations, we find big and little, fine and ordinary, in about the same proportions as they occurred thousands of years ago; the fish that made them then makes them now, in the same kind of a narrow workshop and within the bounds of a life whose duration has not changed.

Of very ancient historic pearls, the only one of which we have reliable and expert knowledge, is that of the Shah of Persia seen by Tavernier. This and La Peregrina are supposed to be still in existence. Of the very large pearls generally mentioned by writers, three undoubtedly exist, viz., La Pellegrina, the Beresford Hope and one of medium quality in the Austrian Crown weighing about twelve hundred grains.

It is probable that very many pearls have been found, which if generally known would have become celebrated, but of those chronicled, most have passed out of public knowledge. It is probable that some of those about which much has been written were not as beautiful as others which have escaped notoriety. The writer's habit of drawing upon the past to illustrate a subject, has narrowed the literature of pearls to reiterated records of a few great pearls which one by one have been brought to public notice during the past centuries.

Exact and reliable statements about gems are a modern innovation. In the old times unverified report was the only evidence the general public had of them. Crown jewellers, not always quite reliable, would make public some statements in general terms about the jewels of a reigning house. Occasionally, as in the case of France, the state had the crown jewels inventoried so that some fairly definite knowledge could be had of them. Infrequently a traveller published his observations, made under more or less favorable circumstances, of the jewels of some oriental prince. Chief of these was Tavernier, the French jeweller. He not only had expert knowledge of gems but was able by recommendations of the French court, to gain such access to the jewels of eastern princes and dealers that he could make critical examinations of them.

For various reasons it is extremely difficult also in these days to obtain accurate knowledge of extraordinary gems. Dealers for business reasons are chary of information, nor will they make such pieces common by allowing many to see and handle them. The buyer is equally averse to publicity, so that exact knowledge does not pass far beyond the dealer and his customer as a rule.

The finest pearl known is that in the Museum of Zosima, in Moscow, called La Pellegrina. It is perfectly round and so lustrous that it appears to be transparent. It weighs about 112 grains and was bought of the captain of an East India ship at Leghorn.

The largest known pearl to-day is in the Beresford Hope collection shown at the South Kensington Museum, London. It is two inches long and its circumference is four and a half inches. It weighs three ounces (1818 grains).

Tavernier saw a pearl in 1663 belonging to the Shah of Persia which was valued at 3200 tomans or about $320,000 of our money. It was very perfect, pear-shaped, and nearly three inches long. It is believed to have come from the ancient fishery at Catifa in Arabia. Even this great sum was exceeded by Pliny in his estimate of the pearl Cleopatra is said to have swallowed. He placed the value of that at $375,000. As the Shah's pearl was about three inches long, Cleopatra's must have been large enough to reflect on the story connected with it.

It is said Julius Cæsar presented a pearl valued at an equivalent of nearly $250,000 to Servilla the sister of Cato of Utica and mother of Marcus Junius Brutus. The pearl taken from the ear-drop of Caecilia Metella by Clodius to dissolve and drink in vinegar was valued at $40,000.

A large pear-shaped pearl weighing one thousand grains was found at the island of Margarita off the Colombian coast and given to Philip II. of Spain. Some reports say it was obtained in 1579; others give the date as 1560 and say it was presented to the monarch by Don Diego de Temes. It was valued then at something over $30,000, but Freco, the king's jeweller, said it might be worth twice to twenty times as much for such a gem was priceless. It was later known among the crown jewels as La Peregrina. Prior to this, a companion of Magellan reported having seen two pearls as large as hen's eggs in the possession of the Rajah of Borneo.

The pearl which Sir Thomas Gresham drank in his wine to Elizabeth of England is said to have been worth seventy-five thousand dollars. It was reported some years ago that the Queen of the Gambiers owned a pearl of extraordinary luster, as large as a pigeon's egg. There is a story that in 1779 a pearl weighing 2312 grains which cost in India $22,500, was offered for sale in St. Petersburg. It was called the sleeping lion because of its shape and must have been therefore a baroque.

The republic of Venice presented a pearl to Soliman The Magnificent, Sultan of Turkey, which was valued at $80,000, and Pope Leo X. bought one of a Venetian jeweller for $70,000. These sums make the prices of to-day seem insignificant and it is very probable that many of the pearls which brought such large amounts would not pass criticism now. Perhaps one reason for the scarcity of large pearls among those taken from the fisheries in this age is that many of them are classed as baroques or are not sufficiently fine and perfect to attract attention. They pass therefore among those considered unworthy of notice.

A brown pearl valued at $25,000 was exhibited by Marchisini of Florence at the Maritime International Exhibition at Naples in 1871. Among the Dudley pearls exhibited at the London Exhibition of 1872 was a necklace of exceptionally fine pearls valued at $150,000. The late Czar of Russia spent twenty-five years in collecting sufficient perfect Virgin pearls to form a necklace for his wife. The Countess Henckel owns a necklace of pearls which for value and associations is unrivalled. It is composed of three strands, each at one time being a separate and historical necklace. One was the famous necklace belonging to the Empress Eugénie which has been valued at £20,000; one known as "the necklace of the Virgin of Atokha," formerly owned by a member of the Spanish nobility, the third belonged to the ex-Queen of Naples. For value this is exceeded by a single strand necklace of large pearls lately bought by a western millionaire of the United States. It is composed of thirty-seven pearls ranging from eighteen to fifty-two and three-quarter grains each, the latter being the largest central pearl. The combined weight of the pearls is 979-3/4 grains and the value is given at $400,000.

A very beautiful and nearly perfect pear-shaped pearl was found on the north-east coast of Australia in the seventies. It weighed 159 grains. There is a pearl about the size of a pigeon's egg in the French crown jewels, valued at $8,000. Many fine pearls, especially black or colored, have been found on the Mexican coast during the last twenty-five years, among them a black pearl of 162 grains and another of 108 grains, a white pear-shape weighing 176 grains, an oval of 128 grains, and three weighing 300 grains, 180 grains and 372 grains respectively, the first two being found in the same year.

In the World's Fair in Paris, 1889, seven black pearls from this district, valued at $22,000 were exhibited. These and others are described in "Gems and Precious Stones" by Kunz. No fresh-water pearl has attained an equal notoriety with the Queen pearl found at Notch Brook near Paterson, New Jersey, in 1857. It weighed 93 grains and was sold to the Empress Eugénie.

Another round pearl of 400 grains, ruined by boiling, had it been properly extracted from the mussel, would probably have been the finest and most notable pearl of this age, though another as large as a pigeon's egg, dropped from the mollusk and lost when the shell was opened, might have rivalled it. The finder was wading in a stream in Ohio, feeling for the projecting edges of the mussels with his feet, and opening them as he brought them to the surface, as was custom there. This, however, may have been like the fish that got away.

PEARLS IN LITERATURE

In all countries where woman has been enthroned in the respect as well as the affections of man, the pearl has been inseparably connected with her in his mind as a peculiarly fitting accompaniment to feminine loveliness. In the romantic dreams of youth, which hide betimes the harsh realism of life under a golden haze of imagery; where belted knights and fair ladies live and move unfettered, and all the impossible delights of sweet desire free from untoward consequences are reasonable; where invincible swords have no thought of the horrors of carnage, and unimpeded love is without cold calculation or following of sorrow, pearls everywhere shimmer.

And when in his exalted moods man paints the shadow picture of the goddess of his life, he finds one gem alone befitting with which to deck her, namely, the pearl. This has come to pass probably because the ideal qualities of woman and the sea-gem are alike, purity and modesty. The beauty of the most lustrous pearl is unobtrusive and its quality is virginal. In our visions of the spectral past, the shades of the consorts of the mighty all wear them.