PART III—MISCELLANEA
PEARLS
WHAT IS A PEARL?
What is a pearl? The substance of a sensation—the consolidation of discomfort on the part of an oyster or other nacre-secreting mollusc. It is a globular deposit of carbonate of lime, with a very small proportion of water, generally enclosing a trifle which is its cause and core and, so to speak, is a waste product of the body's chemistry. In the restricted, scientific sense, “true pearls are bodies consisting of calcareous material with an organic basis.” Similar bodies having cores of sand grains or other foreign substance are known as “blisters.”
Science, which peers and probes into the innermost affairs of oysters, and speaks of them in terms of uneasy familiarity, asserts that pearls are frequently caused by a parasite to which they are subject.
It would ill become one who has no scientific pretensions to suggest other definitions, though he may claim to be among the few who have been privileged to observe a pearl in the making, or, rather, to watch Nature's finishing touches.
In the case of the oyster the radical home cure for the living irritant or insoluble substance which had gained entrance between its valves is an encasement of pearl-film. If this encasement is globular or pear-shaped, or takes the form of a button and is lucid, lustrous, flawless, and of large size, it may be of almost inestimable worth.