The color of a pearl is determined by that of the conchiolin, as appears from its remaining unchanged after decalcification. While generally it is the same as that of the mother-of-pearl at the corresponding point of the shell in which it is formed, there are many exceptions to this, and the reasons for the varying tints and colors are probably to be found in the changes in position of the pearl, the ingredients of the water, the health of the mollusk, accidents of various kinds, etc. These factors will be referred to later in discussing the pearls from different mollusks and regions; but in general it is no more easy to explain the colors of pearls than it is to say why one rose is white and another is yellow.

Medieval writers had much to say regarding unripe or immature pearls, likening them to eggs in the body of a hen, which follow a uniform rate of growth; and this idea is not entirely absent even in contemporaneous writings. However, it is an interesting fact that the humble mollusks, like the five wise virgins with prepared lamps, keep their gems perfect in beauty and luster at all times. It matters not whether the pearl be removed when it is only the size of a pinhead or not until it reaches that of a marble, it is at all times a complete, a ripe, a perfect pearl, and the largest surpasses the smallest only in the characteristics and properties which are incidental to size. Imparting perfection and completion every day, every moment, the mollusk utilizes the added time simply in enlarging its beautiful work.

Although art has made wonderful progress in that direction, the pearl, like truth, is not easily imitated. There is as much difference between the ubiquitous imitations and the perfect gem as there is between a chromolithograph and a silvery Corot, or between the effects of cosmetics and the freshness of youth. While to the unskilled, or under superficial inspection, the false has some of the properties of the genuine, it is only necessary to place them side by side to make the difference apparent. However clever the imitation may be in color, in form, and in density, it always lacks in richness, in sweetness, and in blended iridescence.

V

SOURCES OF PEARLS

V
SOURCES OF PEARLS

Rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house, as your pearl in your foul oyster.

As You Like It, Act V, sc. 4.

In geographic range, the sources of pearls are widely distributed, each one of the six continents yielding its quota; but the places where profitable fisheries are prosecuted are restricted in area. First in point of value, and possibly of antiquity also, are the fisheries of the Persian Gulf, giving employment ordinarily to thirty thousand or more divers. The yield in the likewise ancient fisheries of the Gulf of Manaar is uncertain, but sometimes remarkably large. The Red Sea resources are now of slight importance compared with their extent in the time of the Ptolemies. Other Asiatic fisheries are in the Gulf of Aden, about Mergui Archipelago, on the coast of China, Japan, Korea, and Siam, and also in the rivers of China, Manchuria, and Siberia.

Aside from those produced in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, the pearl fisheries of Africa are of small extent. Some reefs exist on the lower coast of the German East African territory and also in Portuguese East Africa, but they have not been thoroughly exploited.