“My father found black pearls,” Derek replied.
“They’re all colors, Derek,” Uncle Charlie told him. “Actually, the black ones aren’t as valuable as the white. They’re valuable, all right, especially if they’re perfectly matched, as those two your father sent us were.”
“I’d feel a lot more certain that we’d found the right place if we found some black ones.”
“Let’s go back down when we finish these oysters,” Biff said.
“With all those sharks?”
“Funny thing about sharks,” Uncle Charlie said. “Although they are the pearl diver’s greatest enemy, they can also help produce the pearl.”
“How?” Biff wanted to know.
“The best pearl is the perfectly round pearl. The foreign body which gets into the oyster must be perfectly round to produce the perfect pearl. These round objects are the eggs of parasitic worms. The adult worms are the parasites of sharks.”
“So where you find sharks, you can find pearls?” Biff asked.
“Not exactly, Biff. What I mean is this: where there are pearl fisheries, the perfect pearls come from the eggs the shark’s parasites lay.”