PEARL FISHERIES OF AUSTRALIA
Ocean’s gem, the purest
Of nature’s works! What days of weary journeyings,
What sleepless nights, what toils on land and sea,
Are borne by men to gain thee!
Unknown.
As regards area of distribution the most extensive pearl-oyster grounds of the world are situated on the northern and western coasts of Australia. These are located within the jurisdictions of Queensland, Western Australia, and South Australia; and extend in irregular patches from near Cooktown on the northeast almost to Fremantle at the southwest, a distance of nearly 3000 miles. Those in Queensland are commonly known as the Torres Straits fisheries, as they are especially important there; but they extend a considerable distance beyond each end of the strait, and pearling expeditions are made from the limits of the Great Barrier coral reef northward to the vicinity of New Guinea.[[248]] Those of Western Australia are commonly spoken of as the Northwest fisheries.
The fisheries of Queensland and of Western Australia are approximately equal in extent, as regards number of vessels, boats, and men employed, and the quantity and value of the catch, with the advantage slightly in favor of the Northwest fishery in the last four or five years. In 1905, according to the official figures, the Queensland fishery gave employment to 348 vessels and 2850 men, and yielded shell and pearls worth £135,000, which was the smallest output since 1890. The Western Australia fishery, exclusive of Sharks Bay, employed 365 vessels in 1905, and about the same number of men as in Queensland, and yielded £196,000 worth of shell and pearls. The fishery of South Australia employed about 60 vessels and 375 men, and yielded about £25,000 worth of shell and pearls. This makes for the whole of Australia, except Sharks Bay hereinafter noted, a total of 773 vessels, 6075 men, and an output worth £356,000. It should be understood that the South Australia fishery is not prosecuted on the southern coast of the continent, but on the northern coast, in what is known as the Northern Territory of South Australia.
Three species of pearl-oysters are found in Australian waters. The largest species, Margaritifera maxima, which is by far the most important and widely distributed, occurs to a greater or less extent throughout the whole of this region. This yields the standard motherof-pearl of commerce. Although the pearls which it yields are among the largest and finest in the world, this mollusk is sought more particularly for the shell, the value of which from season to season averages three or four times as much as that of the pearls. Ordinarily this shell is uniformly white over the entire inner surface, and is commonly known locally as “silver lip”; but some “golden-edged” shell occurs on the muddy grounds in narrow passages between the islands on the northwest coast.
While this species is gregarious, it is not located in densely covered beds, but is scattered in patches over the reefs. Some of these are miles in length and contain scores of tons, but visually they are very much smaller. The oysters occur principally on rocky bottom, and also on clay and sand when well covered with seaweeds, but are rarely found on muddy ground. They are most numerous in the channels where the current is strong. The small oysters are generally loosely attached by the byssus to rock, gravel or other shells; while the mature ones lie loosely on the bottom or slightly turned in the sand.
The second species of the Australian pearl-oysters, Margaritifera margaritifera, is smaller, rarely exceeding eight inches in diameter and a weight of two pounds. The distinguishing characteristic is the black edge bordering the inner surface of the shell, whence it acquired the local designation “black lip.” This variety is not rare in Queensland, and in Western Australia its range extends as far as Champion Bay in Lat. 29° S. However, the catch is small compared with that of the Margaritifera maxima, amounting to only two or three per cent. in Queensland. In 1905, the export of “silver lip” and “golden-edged” from Thursday Island was 527 tons, and of “black lip” only 11 tons; in 1904, these figures were 778 and 7 respectively. In Western Australia the percentage of yield is much larger than this.
The third species, Margaritifera carcharium, is confined almost entirely to the limits of Sharks Bay, on the extreme western coast of Australia. At maturity it is the smallest of the three, averaging three or four inches in diameter, and about equals in size the Lingah pearl-oyster of the Persian Gulf. The percentage of pearls therefrom is relatively greater than from the larger variety; but, owing to its small size and lack of thickness, the shell is of little commercial value. The value of the output in recent years has approximated two or three thousand pounds sterling, which is very much less than formerly, the value of the shell having greatly decreased since the introduction of the Mississippi shell in button manufacture.
The pearl fishery on the coast of Australia originated about 1861. It appears that an American sailor named Tays was the pioneer in the business; and on his death by drowning, the business was conducted by his partner named Seubert.[[249]] This was on the northwest coast, and the output reached the market by way of Singapore. At first the oysters were so abundant in shallow water that they could be picked up at low tide, and beach-combing was profitable, especially when carried on with cheap native labor. As the beach-beds became exhausted, the natives were encouraged to wade out to greater depths, and soon they became accustomed to “bob under” for those oysters visible from the surface. The Australian blacks were thus taught to dive, and in 1867 diving from boats in two or three fathoms was attempted with such success that in the following year the practice was generally adopted, the depth in which they worked gradually extending to six or eight fathoms. In diving from a boat, the men imitated “bobbing under” which they had practised in shoaler water; they slipped off the gunwale feet foremost, and when six or eight feet below the surface, turned and swam downward.
Owing to the close labor relations existing between the natives and the sheep-raisers of northwestern Australia, the latter were brought into the business, and for a number of years pearling and sheep-raising were closely associated. The blacks were employed in various duties in connection with raising and shearing sheep, and it was important to find some occupation for them when ranch-work was slack, not only for their own subsistence but for the protection of the herdsmen and their property. Fortunately, this opportunity was furnished by the pearl fishery, for which these men were well qualified.
The profits of the business soon attracted many outside capitalists, and it became difficult to procure divers. Not only did the pearlers—and particularly new-comers—resort to impressing the blacks into service, but skilled fishermen were brought over from the Malay Archipelago, and in some cases the methods used in securing them were by no means regular.
In 1871 the Northwest pearl fishery gave employment to 12 vessels of 15 to 50 tons each, and yielded about 180 tons of mother-of-pearl. During the same year, in Torres Straits, where the industry had extended about 1868, there were 10 vessels—mostly from the port of Sydney—and the catch of mother-of-pearl approximated 200 tons, valued at £60,000 in London.[[250]] Each vessel was commonly manned by two or three white men and from ten to fifty divers, who worked from dinghys, in gangs of six or eight each with an overseer in charge.
As the fishery increased rapidly in extent, the problem of securing nude divers became a serious one, and “nigger hunting” became rather common, the Australian black man representing the cheapest form of labor, working for his food, tobacco, and the simplest articles of clothing. There was no complaint that the men thus impressed were treated with inhumanity; on the contrary they were well fed and cared for; yet, with a view to protecting them and preventing even a suspicion of wrong-doing, the Australian government enacted regulations restricting pearling contracts with the natives. Nearly every year these regulations became more stringent, affecting the hours for diving, and limiting the work to depths of six and a half fathoms, so that the employment of Australian aborigines in the fishery became extremely troublesome and annoying.
The government of the Netherlands also placed severe restrictions on the employment of natives of the Dutch Indies, requiring security of £20 per head for the repatriation of each man; and the local chiefs or rajahs also expected a rake-off before permitting their men to ship. These Malays—from the islands of Solor, Allor, Adonare, etc.,—also expected much better pay and better provisions than the Australian blacks.
The following interesting account by Henry Taunton gives a graphic description of the fishery as carried on at that time:
The work was far from easy. It was exhausting and perilous for the divers, and full of privation, exposure, and danger for the white men. Only the hope of a prosperous season reconciled one to the life. When shells were plentiful and the weather fine, the work was exciting and interesting enough; but during rough weather, when one had to be constantly straining at the oar to keep the dinghy from drifting too rapidly, or when hour after hour might pass without the men bringing up a single shell, the discouragement was great. The rays of the vertical sun beating down on one’s shoulders at such times seemed as if it would never reach the western horizon, which was the signal for returning on board.
As may well be imagined, when three or four white men had to control and compel some thirty or forty natives to carry on work which they detested, a very strict discipline had to be maintained. It was the rule that no talking was allowed amongst the divers when in the dinghy, nor were they even permitted to address the white man, unless, maybe, to answer a question as to the nature of the bottom, whether nanoo (sand) or bannin (shelly bottom), etc., or unless some urgent necessity arose. Sometimes, indeed, I have pushed off from the vessel’s side of a morning and have not heard a word spoken until we returned on board at night, unless chance might take me within hail of some other dinghy, when felicitations or condolences would be exchanged, as good or bad luck might happen. At times, when the “patch” was small, the dinghys of the whole fleet might be congregated on a very small area, in which case the scene was animated enough. On all sides you could see divers slipping into the water and others just coming to the surface, puffing, blowing, and coughing to clear their eyes, ears, and mouth from the salt water—some with, others without shells. Others would be swimming to regain their dinghy or squatting in their places for the few minutes’ rest permitted, and, if the wind were at all fresh, shivering with cold; for although the weather might be extremely hot, the constant plunging in and out for many hours at a time tended to reduce the bodily temperature considerably. The white men would be seen standing up in each dinghy. They were lightly clad, with shirt sleeves and trousers rolled up, in all varieties and colours of costume, from the regulation shirt, trousers, and felt hat, with leather belt sustaining sheath-knife and pouch, to the more comfortable pyjama suit, or even the Malay sarong. Some would be straining hard at the end of the scull-oar, forcing the boat against wind and tide in the endeavor to keep it as long as possible on the “patch,” which was marked by the discoverer’s buoy, which also might be observed nodding on the surface, and canted over by the swiftly rushing tide. Others, their men all being below, just kept the dinghy’s head to wind until, by judicious use of the oar and well-calculated drifting, all the divers reappear on the surface within a short distance from their own boat. This is the secret of saving the divers from wasting their powers and time uselessly.... As may be supposed, where the tide sweeps the divers along the bottom at the rate of three or four or even six miles an hour, they have to be very smart in seeking and grabbing any shell within reach. I have never tested them with a time-keeper; but by counting seconds on many occasions, from the moment a diver’s head sank below until it again came above the surface, I estimated the average time under water was fifty-seven seconds. Part of this is of course expended in swimming to the bottom, where they can remain only a very few seconds, as time must be allowed for reaching the surface before letting go their breath. Practice in ever-varying depths enables them to gauge this limit of time to a nicety. But sometimes they cut things too fine, and then a catastrophe was inevitable, unless much watchfulness was exercised by the white man, who has to keep his eyes turned in all directions once his men are down. So long as a diver can hold his breath the pressure forces him to the surface at a speed which seldom requires accelerating by strokes with the hands or feet; but the moment he lets go his breath—if under water—his upward course is arrested and his body commences to sink. Now, when the white man sees this, either he must plunge in to the rescue himself, or direct such divers who may be on the top to do the needful.
On a calm day, when one can see far into the blue clear depths below, I have often seen one of my men shooting rapidly upwards until within perhaps a foot or two from the surface, when a sudden gush of bubbles from the man’s mouth would tell its own tale. Instantly he would begin to sink gently downwards, and only quick action could save this diver who had miscalculated his time. However, as it was not infrequent for divers to go down and never come up at all, one may conclude that, where the time to be allowed is comprised in so few seconds, even the most experienced make fatal errors.[[251]]
The difficulties in securing labor at length resulted in experiments with the scaphander or diving dress, and gradually its adoption by most of the pearling fleet. The labor problem and the exhaustion of the oysters in medium depths developed more quickly in Torres Straits than on the northwest coast, and diving outfits were introduced there about 1879, while this was delayed about five years longer on the northwest coast. The outfit did not immediately supplant nude diving in either locality. In 1883, only 80 of the 206 Queensland vessels were supplied with scaphanders, the others continuing to use nude diving, and even yet nearly one third of the vessels depend on that form of fishery. Of the 353 vessels fishing in 1904, 108 depended on nude divers and 245 were supplied with armored equipment.
In 1881 the Queensland government took cognizance of the rapidly developing industry, and enacted a license system and other regulations. For every boat under two tons an annual license fee of £1 (in 1886 this was reduced to ten shillings) was enacted, and for every vessel of ten tons or under, the sum of £3, with an additional amount for vessels in excess of that measurement; but not exceeding £20 in any case.[[252]] In 1886 it was required by the Queensland government that every person employed “as a diver, and using a diving apparatus,” must be licensed annually, for which a fee of £1 is exacted.[[253]] And in 1891 it was required that “every diving dress and air-pump and all air-tubes and gear used in the fishery in connection with diving must be submitted to an inspector for examination once at least in every period of six months.”[[254]] The license system was adopted in Western Australia in 1886, a fee of £1 per annum being exacted for each vessel engaged in the fishery.[[255]] In 1891, South Australia adopted the license system, requiring that every boat of two tons or under should pay ten shillings, and that each boat over that measurement should pay twenty shillings.
With a view to protecting the reefs, the government of Queensland in 1891 enacted a law forbidding the sale or removal—except for cultivation purposes—of any pearl shell “of the kind scientifically known as Meleagrina margaritifera, and of either of the varieties commonly known as ‘golden-edged’ and ‘silver lip,’ of which the nacre or mother-of-pearl measures less than six inches from the butt or hinge to the opposite edge or lip, but this does not apply to the variety commonly called ‘dwarf-shell.’”[[256]] Owing to the difficulty in enforcing this regulation, the size restriction was reduced in 1897 to five inches from the hinge to the opposite lip, or six and one half inches exteriorly, shells of this size weighing approximately one pound. It is claimed that many oysters less than five inches in length are raised, opened for pearls, and then cast back into the water.[[257]] In 1899 the governor of South Australia interdicted the capture in the waters of that territory of any shell of “Meleagrina margaritifera measuring less than four inches from the butt or hinge to the opposite edge or lip.” Competent evidence exists that a good-sized pearl has been found in an oyster measuring one inch in diameter.
Pearling boats at Hiqueru, Tuamotu Archipelago
Australian pearl-diver (armored) coming up from the depths
The fishermen of Western Australia rendezvous at Broome, about one thousand miles by water north of Perth, the nearest railway station. With only a thousand or so inhabitants, under normal conditions, this is a scene of great activity, and bears a reputation of being no Sunday-school when the fishermen are in, with tons of shell and many a pickle bottle more or less full of pearls. Cossack and Onslow are also important stations.
In 1905, 340 luggers and 25 schooners were employed in the pearl fisheries of Western Australia, exclusive of Sharks Bay. Of this number about 85 per cent. hailed from Broome. The schooners ranged in size from 13 to 133 tons, and the luggers were mostly about 12 tons, with a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 14 tons. The total number of fishermen approximated 2900, a medley of races, Japanese, Malays, Chinese, Arabs, native aboriginals and South Sea Islanders working together more or less harmoniously. The yield consisted of 1394 tons of mother-of-pearl, with a declared value of £146,225, and about £50,000 worth of pearls, a total of £196,255 for the year, which was an increase of £32,286 over 1904.[[258]]
The headquarters for the fishery of the Northern Territory of South Australia are at Port Darwin. In 1905 this fishery employed forty-nine sail vessels and two canoes manned by Europeans, and two proas and twelve canoes manned by Malays. The crews, numbering about 375, consisted mainly of Malays, Japanese and Filipinos. In 1905, 42 per cent. were Malays, 24 per cent. were Japanese, and 20 per cent. were Filipinos. Owing to the low price of pearl shell, the fishery was not prosecuted actively, and many of the Asiatics left for the pearling reefs at the Aru Islands. The total value of pearl shells reported among the exports for that year was £18,526; during the preceding year it was £28,391. No record is available for the value of the pearls.
The Queensland pearling fleet has its rendezvous at Port Kennedy, Thursday Island, which was originally maintained by the British, the Queensland, and the New South Wales governments as a harbor of refuge for mariners. Politically this port is important as the strategic key to the northeast of Australia, but its prosperity is almost wholly dependent on the pearl-oyster fishery. The population approximates 1600, consisting largely of Japanese, Malays, Cingalese, Pacific islanders, and Australian aborigines, with specimens from nearly every Asiatic and European nationality, and some from America and Africa. The Japanese predominate, their influx dating from 1891; and at present the industry is largely dependent on these Scotchmen of the Orient for its most skilful workmen. The heterogeneous nationalities, and the abundance of sand-flies, mosquitos, etc., make this island rather less desirable as a place of residence than it is interesting from a political and ethnological point of view.
The Queensland fishery in 1905 employed 348 vessels, and yielded 543 tons of shell, according to the government returns. In 1904, 353 vessels were engaged, and the catch was 798 tons of shell.
During the last fifteen years there has been a very steady decrease in the average catch of pearl-oysters per boat in the Australian fishery. The average catch in the Queensland fleet in 1890 approximated 7 tons per boat; from 1898 to 1903 it was about 3 tons annually; in 1904 it was only 2¼ tons, and in 1905 a trifle more than 1½ tons. The yearly increasing number of boats would naturally lower the average, but the decrease is generally ascribed to the denudation of the reefs, due to close working for thirty-five years without giving them a chance to recuperate.
The small yield in Queensland in 1904 and 1905 was due largely ta the extended rough weather and the accompanying thick or muddy water, which presented an obstacle to the prosecution of the work. Mr. Hugh Milman, the government resident at Thursday Island, states that each year the beds in the more sheltered spots have been extensively fished, rendering it necessary for the fleet to go farther afield in places where the depth of water is greater, and where the vessels are more exposed to the full force of the southeast winds which prevail for about seven months of the year, and which were unusually severe in 1905.[[259]] The general denudation of the beds is not the principal cause of the decreased take. An additional cause for the falling off in 1905 was the deflection of a large percentage of the fleet to new fields of operation, 110 vessels leaving for the Aru Islands in the Arafura Sea, when the season was about half finished.
For vessels using diving apparatus, the season continues throughout the year, but it is frequently interrupted by storms, which may cause the boats to lie in harbor for ten days, or even two weeks at a time. The nude divers suspend work from December to March, and also during the season of gales.
Each vessel is manned by a diver, his attendant, and a crew of four men, who in pairs take alternate shifts at the manual pump for supplying air to the diver. The entire force of men take part in managing the vessel and in caring for the catch. The vessel is provided with full equipment and supplies of food, water, etc., to last two or three weeks, depending on the distance of the fishing grounds from the shore station, or the frequency of trips made by a supply vessel.
Except a number of owners and their representatives, there are now very few white persons engaged in pearling in Australian waters. Even the persons in charge of the vessels are largely natives of the Pacific Islands. Owing to the hardships encountered and the small remuneration, it is difficult to secure white labor; and aliens from Japan, the Philippines, Java, Singapore, India and New Guinea, are employed.
The divers are of many nationalities, principally Japanese and Malays, and the former are said to be the most efficient. Previous to 1890, they were mostly whites, and were paid at the rate of £40 per ton of shells; but increased competition and the influx of cheaper labor caused a considerable decrease in the rate of compensation, driving most of the white men out of the employment. At present the Japanese almost monopolize the business. Of the 367 divers licensed at Thursday Island in 1905, 291 were Japanese, 32 were Filipinos, 21 were from Rotuma Island, 16 were Malays, and 7 were of other nationalities; this shows how completely the white man has been driven out of this skilled branch of labor.
The oysters are so scattered that considerable walking is necessary to find them. They usually lie with the shells partly open, and in grasping them the fisherman must be careful not to insert a finger within the open shell, or a very bad pinch will result. The progress of the vessel must be adapted to that of the diver, and when a good clump of oysters is found it may even be desirable to anchor. If the current and wind are just right, the vessel may repeatedly drift over a bed, the diver ascending and remaining on board while the vessel is retracing its course to the windward side of the reef. On new grounds, the nature of the bottom is determined by casting the lead properly tipped with soap or tallow, and the prospects for oysters thus determined without descending.
During good weather and in eight or ten fathoms of water, a diver can work almost continually, and need not return to the surface for two hours or more; but as the depth increases, the length of time he may remain at the bottom in safety decreases almost in geometric ratio, and he comes to the surface frequently for a “blow” with helmet removed. Evidence secured by a departmental commission of the Queensland government in 1897, showed that in good weather at a depth of eight or ten fathoms, a diver works from sunrise to sunset, coming to the surface only a few times. In a depth of over fifteen fathoms the attendant usually has instructions not to let him remain longer than fifteen minutes at a time; yet a diver’s eagerness in working where good shell is plentiful sometimes impels him to order the attendant to disregard this rule. The very great pressure of the water—amounting to thirty-nine pounds or more to the square inch—is liable to cause paralysis, and death occasionally results. In working at a depth of twenty to twenty-five fathoms, a diver is rarely under water longer than half an hour altogether during the day. The greatest depth from which shell is brought appears from the same evidence to be “30 fathoms and a little over”; but at that depth—where the pressure is seventy-eight pounds to the square inch—the fisherman remains down only a few minutes at a stretch, and should be exceedingly careful. The work is injurious, and even under the best conditions the diver not infrequently becomes semi-paralyzed and disqualified in a few years. Notwithstanding that the work is performed by men in vigorous health, nearly every year there are from ten to twenty-five deaths in the Queensland fleet alone;[[260]] three fourths of these are due to paralysis, and most of the remaining result from suffocation, owing largely to inexperience in use of gear. From five to ten years is the usual length of a man’s diving career, although in the fleet may be found men who have been diving for twenty-five years or more.
On the vessels manned by Japanese, commonly several members of the crew are competent divers and take a turn at the work, although only one license is secured. Such a vessel carries only one head-piece, but two otherwise complete suits, the helmet fitting either, so that as soon as one exhausted diver comes up to rest, a successor is ready to have the helmet screwed to his body-dress and descend without delay, thus saving about half an hour in the changing.
The nude divers in the Australian pearl fisheries are mostly Malays and Australian aborigines. They work from dinghys operated from a vessel, each dinghy carrying six or eight divers, usually with a white man as overseer. The man in charge sculls against the tide to keep the boat stationary over the ground, and all the fishermen of a particular dinghy descend together for greater safety from sharks, and to cover the ground systematically. On rising, each diver swims to the boat, throws his catch over the gunwale, and climbs in to rest for a few minutes. Sometimes two or possibly even three oysters may be brought up at a single descent, but a diver is doing well if he brings up one oyster in ten descents. The average daily catch of each man is probably two or three oysters, but a fisherman has been known to bring up fifty in one day. On some vessels, those who fall behind in the catch are punished by extra duty aboard ship.
The pearling industry has had a marked effect on the industrial and social condition of the natives of the Australian coast and the adjacent islands. Many of these natives now have boats of their own, and others seek employment on other vessels. Law and order and decent respect for property have arisen, with schools and churches. The result is all the more remarkable when it is considered that scarcely more than a generation has passed since labor among the men was unknown, the women doing all the work necessary to meet their scanty requirements.
As now carried on in Australia, pearling is a hard life, the men working for two thirds of the season in a dead calm and oppressive heat, while in the remaining months they are rolling day and night. The members of the crew are not allowed ashore without a written permission from the captain of the boat, and men and luggage are searched on leaving the vessel. In addition to these objections, life on board is not unusually made intensely disagreeable by the myriads of inch-long cockroaches, which are attracted by and multiply rapidly on the shreds of muscle left on the pearl shell stored in the hold. Storms are frequent on the coast. In February, 1899, three schooners and eighty smaller vessels were wrecked, and eleven white and four hundred colored men were drowned.
At the end of each day’s fishing, the oysters are cleaned of submarine growths. Sometimes this is by no means an easy task, as many of the shells are so covered with weeds, coral, and sponge as to bear little resemblance to oysters. After they have been scrubbed and the edges have been chipped, they are washed and stored on deck. Early the following morning they are opened and examined for pearls. This opening is done carefully to avoid injury to any pearl that may be within. The hinge of the shell is placed on the deck and a broad knife forced down so as to sever the adductor muscle, causing the shells to spring open and permitting the removal of the soft parts. The flesh is carefully examined, both by sight and by feeling, to locate all pearls, which are picked out by hand and placed in a suitable receptacle. Within the adductor muscle are found seed-pearls and small baroques; the large pearls are found embedded in the mantle, where their presence may be detected as soon as the shell is opened, the pearly gleam contrasting with the light blue of the mantle. Sometimes, though rarely, large pearls are found loose within the shell, whence they roll out when the shell is opened. Valuable pearls are occasionally removed from blisters on the surface of the shell, or from within the body of the nacre itself. Even when empty, these blisters are valuable, and are especially adapted for brooches and other ornaments requiring a broad and relatively flat surface.
After the flesh has been carefully examined throughout, it is discarded, as it is not considered suitable for food, and the shell is dried for half a day or so to make the hinge brittle in order that it may be broken without injury to the mother-of-pearl. After the shell has been roughly cleaned, it is placed in the hold, if the vessel is operating from a shore station, as is commonly the case in Torres Straits. Since long exposure to the sun affects the quality of the mother-of-pearl, it is important that it be kept under cover. On returning to the station, it is thoroughly cleaned, assorted, dried, the dark edges clipped off, and the cleaned shell is packed in shipping cases, each containing from 250 to 325 pounds. On the west coast, where the vessels at times operate 200 or 300 miles from port, the shell is cleaned, assorted and crated on the vessels; whence it may be delivered direct to the steamers. The Northwest shell is somewhat smaller than the mature shell of Torres Straits, averaging about 1100 to the ton, whereas that of Thursday Island runs about 725 to the ton.
It is very difficult to prevent the theft of pearls by the fishermen as they are liable to treat them as perquisites if not carefully watched. Indeed, on the Torres Straits vessels it has come about that pearls do not constitute a recognized source of income to the proprietors. There the fishery is now conducted almost exclusively for the shells, as the wage-earners secrete probably as many valuable pearls as they turn over to the rightful owners. The hot sun causes many of the oysters to open, and deft fingers quickly pick out such pearls as may be visible. An oyster may be induced to open its shell by being held near the galley fire on the lugger, and the insertion of a piece of cork holds it open while a pearl is shaken out or hooked out by means of a piece of wire. Then the cork is removed and the oyster closes again with no evidence of robbery. The proprietors of boats who themselves open the oysters almost invariably secure larger yields of fine pearls than those who depend on paid employees, who rarely have the luck to find choice pearls, judging from what they turn in. The government of Queensland has endeavored to put a stop to pearl stealing, and by enactment[[261]] of 1891, it restricted all selling or buying of pearls within the fishing region except through regularly licensed dealers, whose transactions are open to examination.
But the fishermen seem to have little difficulty in evading the laws, and throughout the fleet the men have become so adept that they regard the pearls as their contraband perquisites. And the ease with which these may be secreted is surpassed only by the facility with which they may be sold, notwithstanding legislation to the contrary. Indeed, some employers make no claim to the pearls found, thus enabling them to secure fishermen at lower rates of wages.
As previously noted, the pearls constitute only an incidental catch in the fisheries on the Australian coast, but in the aggregate the yield is very large. The yield in the northwest Australian fishery in 1906 is estimated at £50,000, local valuation; in the Queensland fishery £33,000; in that of South Australia £5000, a total of £88,000 or $440,000.[[262]] Relatively few seed-pearls are obtained, and some of the pearls are of great size. Some beautiful specimens have been found, but usually they have less luster and are more irregular in form than the Persian or the Indian output.
Among the remedies suggested for improving the condition of the Australian pearl reefs may be mentioned the establishment of six inches as the minimum size of the shell that may be taken (five inches is now permitted in Queensland, and there is no restriction in Western Australia), the closure of certain areas for stated periods from time to time, and a limit on the number of vessels employed. The government resident at Thursday Island, Mr. Hugh Milman, who has had long acquaintance with the industry, strongly recommends the adoption of a system of artificial culture; and in the meantime, to foster the industry, “licenses should be granted to a reduced number of boats and certain sheltered areas should be closed altogether for a few years to give the beds time to recover. This latter procedure, however, the pearlers themselves are not in favor of, as they are of the opinion that the weather conditions against which they have to contend are sufficient protection to prevent the denudation of the principal grounds.”
A few years ago certain areas in Torres Straits were proclaimed closed for a period against the removal of pearl shell; but, owing to the want of effective patrol, the shell was poached to a very large extent, and consequently the good that should have resulted from the experiment was not apparent. Owing to the impracticability of continuous patrol, and the want of proper legislation to bring die offenders to book, it was decided to remove the restrictions.
The Sharks Bay fishery, to which we have previously referred,[[263]] is prosecuted by means of small sail-boats using light dredges, except in the case of the very shallow or “pick-up banks,” where the oysters are commonly removed by hand. Some years ago this fishery was of much local importance; but the developing scarcity of the oysters, and the present low value of this grade of shell in Europe, due to the competition with Mississippi shell, have resulted in a great reduction. In 1905, the industry gave employment to 17 small boats and 42 men, of whom 18 were Europeans, 13 Asiatics, and 11 aboriginal natives. The yield of pearls, according to official report of the government of Western Australia, approximated £2000 in value, and of pearl shell there was 88 tons, with a declared value of £607. In 1896 the government of Western Australia surveyed the Sharks Bay reefs, and opened them to preëmption in small areas for cultivating this species of pearl-oyster. At present they are mostly held under exclusive licenses for a period of fourteen years. The business is under an elaborate system of regulations; but as appears from the above figures the results have not been important.
Pearls are more numerous in this pearl-oyster than in the two other Australian species. In removing them from the flesh, a modification of the Ceylon process is adopted. The mollusks are opened by means of a knife, and the contents of the shells are placed in vats or tubs—known locally as “poogie tubs”; and, exposed to the hot sun, are allowed to putrefy. Sea water is added, and the putrid mass stirred; after several days the water and the thoroughly disintegrated flesh tissues are decanted, leaving the pearls at the bottom. The odor from a number of these “poogie tubs” is said to almost rival that of the “washing toddies” at Marichchikadde.
The Sharks Bay pearls are commonly yellowish or straw-colored, and sometimes have a beautiful golden tinge. Although obtained from small shells, they are sometimes of considerable size—twenty grains or more in weight, and fine specimens sell for several hundred dollars each. China and India furnish better markets for them than Europe or America.