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The Story of the Pearl

S. F. Denton

Copyright, 1916
By S. F. Denton

Ranp Avery Suppty Co.
Boston

Preface

With all that has been written about the
pearl and its origin, there is still so much
misinformation on this subject, even among
persons of education and refinement, that
this little booklet may prove of interest to
those who would be informed in regard to
this most fascinating and beautiful gem.

SHERMAN F. Denton,
Wellesley Farms, Mass.

The Story of the Pearl

No one knows who discovered and _ first
used pearls as ornaments. Before history
began to be written, men loved and
admired these precious gems as they do
to-day. The American Indians had hordes
of them when white men first set foot on
this continent, and they are found in the
mounds where they were buried with the
bodies of the honored members of their
tribes. But it is with the things of to-day
that we are most interested. Where do
pearls come from and how are they formed?
The pearl oyster, Meleagrina, furnishes
most of the finer pearls which come from the
sea. ‘These shells are found in the warm
seas of many parts of the world; the
Persian Gulf, Ceylon, Borneo,The Phillippine
Islands, The Malay Islands, Panama, and
the West Indies. The fresh water mussel,
Unio, from which many of our most valuable
pearls are taken, inhabits the rivers and
lakes of the temperate parts of the world.
China, Russia, Germany, England, Scot-
land and the rivers and _

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But it is in our own country that the Unio
reaches its greatest size and perfection
and where we have more species than
the rest of the world combined. The
streams flowing into the Atlantic Ocean
along our Eastern sea-board, contain but
few of these shells which are mostly small
and inferior, but throughout the Mississippi
valley, from the great lakes to the Gulf
of Mexico, the rivers contain these mussels
in great abundance, many of them noted
for their great size and magnificent coloring.

Origin of the Pearl

The old theory that the pearl is caused
by a grain of sand becoming embedded in
the mantle or nacre-secreting portion of the
mollusk and covered with layers of pearly
matter, has generally been abandoned.
Scientific research has shown that the origin
of the pearl is a minute parasite which
bores its way into the fleshy portion of the
animal which, in self protection, encloses it
in pearly matter to stop its further progress.
This parasite is usually walled out and
fastened down to the interior of the shell
before it works its way deep enough into
the mantle, to make a nucleus for a pearl.
But on rare occasions, as a pearl is an
abnormal growth, the parasite is enclosed
in a fold or pocket in the fleshy mantle,

[000 OF

Sizes of Pearls in Grains

surrounded by nacre-producing cells. Year
after year and layer after layer this nucleus
is covered with the pearly matter as the
animal grows, the fleshy pouch expanding
to accommodate the increasing size of the
pearl. As the mantle is constantly in
motion, the pearl is slowly turned or revolved
in its fold thus distributing the layers of
nacre evenly upon its surface until with
time, if the conditions are favorable, it
becomes a thing of beauty, giving pleasure to

. all who behold it. Pearls are sometimes
lost by the breaking of the walls of the
enclosing pocket in which they grow and
have been found in the beds of streams.
Sometimes too, a mussel outlives its youth
and vigorous maturity, all the while increas-
ing the size of a pearl within its mantle; but
with old age comes decay and the pearl
becomes dead and lifeless. Then, as often
happens, a pearl is found which at first
appears worthless but whose outer coats
enclose a bright and lively gem. In such a
case the outer layers may be removed by
careful manipulation and the pearl restored
to its original perfection and beauty. Pearls
of this class are called “peelers.”’

Pearl Oyster
Meleagrina Margaritifera

How Pearls Are Obtained

Most of the sea pearls are obtained by
naked divers who descend from boats to
the beds of pearl oysters, three to ten or
more fathoms beneath the surface of the
ocean. The shells are brought to the
surface, loaded into boats and conveyed to
land where they are opened and the pearls
extracted, sorted and sold to the merchants.
The fresh water pearl-bearing mussels fre-
quently live in streams so shallow that they
may be easily gathered. This is the case
with the mussels inhabiting our New Eng-
land brooks and rivers. In the rivers of
the middle west, however, they are not
often so easily obtained and rakes, forks,
oyster tongs and iron bars with hooks
attached are extensively used. The latter
are dragged over the mussel beds, the hooks
catching between the open valves of the
shells. Many pearls are found by those
who supply the button factories with shells
for making pearl buttons. The difficulties
to be overcome and the number of mussels
to be gathered and opened are seldom
appreciated by those who see the gems
displayed in the jeweler’s windows. To
collect, carry ashore and open two thousand
of these large shells is a hard day’s work for
a strong man, and as many as twenty thou-
sand shells are occasionally opened without
finding a pearl worth a dime. Again, the
luck is much the other way, a man some-

times taking in one day, a dozen fine pearls.
To find and extract a splendid gem from a
mussel is an experience which appeals to
the gambling instincts of many and com-
pensates for the disappointments, incon-
veniences and hardships of the search.
It is this chance of a ‘‘find’”’ which induces
the fisher to become an amphibious animal
and to search the muddy bottom of the river
day after day grappling for the mussels
while his better judgment and the aches
in his back and limbs would suggest a more
sane manner of spending a vacation.

The number of mussels congregated on
some of the shoals is truly appalling as the
beds of some streams are paved with them
for miles. The shells lie partly buried
in the sand or mud with the thin edges
uppermost. They are usually slightly open
to allow the ingress and egress of the water
from which they obtain their food.

Shapes of Pearls

True pearls are distinguished by several
characteristics from the irregular masses of
nacre found in pearl-bearing mollusks, and
known by the name of baroques. All true

pearls grow in the mantle of the bivalves
and are wholly surrounded by the flesh of
the animal. They are usually symmetrical,
being spheres, hemispheres, drop, dumb-bell
or oval in form and all are revolved as they
grow, thus being spun into shape. Baroques
on the contrary may grow in various parts
of the interior of the shell fish but _they
remain stationary and are therefore irreg-
ular in shape.

Upon opening a shell containing a pearl
_It may be seen to shine through the thin
walls of the mantle which enclose it. An
idea of the appearance of a spherical pearl
in its pocket may be had from the following
cut.

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—
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Pearl in Living Mussel

The fisher can usually tell at a glance,
before removing it, whether he has found a
valuable gem or only a shapeless lump of

SHAPES OF PEARLS

Sphere or Ball Button or Half Drop or Pear-shaped
Pearls Spheres Pearls

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Ringed or
Oval Pearls Biscuit Pearls Dumb-bell Pearls

nacre. The reader should not get an idea
from this, however, that all pearls are
valuable and that all baroques have little
value. A pearl, round and symmetrical and
as large as a pea but of a dead milky lustre
may not be worth a dollar, while a fine,
brilliant and irridescent baroque may be
worth a thousand.

Ringed pearls often have a dull band
encircling them but have bright ends.
Biscuit pearls are not as attractive in shape
as some others though they are sometimes
very fine. Between round pearls, half
spheres, drop and oval shapes it is difficult
to say which are the most attractive. The
half spheres and drop pearls are more
often perfect but few can resist the appeal
of a handsome oval ora perfectly spherical
pearl.

Among the baroques, the nuggets and the
rose or strawberry pearls are often very
beautiful, the turtle backs coming next and
the hinge pearls and slugs last. The nuggets
and rose baroques are found in the mantle,
and all that has prevented them from
becoming pearls is the fact that they have
remained stationary instead of revolving
as all true pearls do. The turtle backs
grow in the hollow near the back of the shell.
They are sometimes of good color but are
not often smooth. The hinge or wing

Gaper
Unio arcuata—New England

Nuggets

baroques are found near the hinge of the

- shell and are usually long and pointed at one

end. Slugs grow in or near the muscles
which serve to draw the two valves of the
shell together. They are always irregular,
generally lack lustre and are therefore of
little value.

Color and Lustre

Pearls are of as many tints as flowers,
birds or butterflies and, while as a rule,
they partake of the color of the lining of
the shells from which they come, this is
by no means always the case, as a white
and a colored pearl may be found growing
in the same shell, side by side. The tints
and shades seem almost endless but it would
indeed be difficult to say which color makes
the most beautiful pearl. Some of the
pearls found in Wisconsin are of such extra-
ordinary color and lustre as to cause one
to doubt, at first glance, their being pearls
at all. Some resemble drops of liquid gold
or copper, others are of an intense peacock
green or blue while still others are a most
exquisite rose pink or lavender. Blue-
black, dark purple or dark green and purple

BAROQUES

Rose or
Strawberry Pearls Turtle-backs

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Wing or Hinge Pearls Slugs

‘bronze are not uncommon. Some of the
salmon and golden pink tints are wonderful
to behold and are well calculated to excite
one’s admiration. Even among’ white
pearls there is always a slight tint of pink,
green or blue so delicate however, that it
is only seen by comparison. Yellow pearls,
unless of a rich, clear color, are not as
valuable as others, but a soft creamy tint
is highly prized. Perhaps the fancy colored
pearls show to best advantage when placed
beside the white. A very pleasing combina-
tion may be made by placing a satiny white
pearl between a leek green one and a rose
pink.

A pearl of fine lustre will reflect a miniature
of one’s self, hair, eyes and teeth, and occa-
sionally one is seen sufficiently brilliant to
reproduce every feature of the landscape as
well. The cause of the various colors of
pearls is a subject about which very little
is known, and why they are often so much
more highly colored than the shells in which
they grow, as, why one is green, another
white and another pink, is a mystery.

Size

How large do pearls grow? All the way
from tiny dots less than the size of a very
small pin’s head, up to specimens of three
or four hundred grains in weight or beyond.
But size alone has very little to do with
the value of a pearl. A symmetrically shaped

and lustrous pearl of five grains may be
more valuable than a misshapen bauble of
one hundred. Very large pearls are rarely
perfect. Perhaps the most satisfactory
sizes are those between ten and twenty
grains, but these are rare and costly. A
perfect pearl of twenty grains, having a
splendid lustre, would be worth to-day
between one hundred and fifty and two
hundred dollars per grain. Pearls of
from five to ten grains in weight are large
enough for most uses and they often make
up in perfection and brilliancy what they
lack in size.

Price

The price of pearls is reckoned by the
square of the weight, thus: if the base price
per grain is three dollars, a two grain pearl
would be figured 2x2 =4x3=12. Therefore,
a two-grain pearl would be worth twelve
dollars. A four-grain pearl would be
reckoned in the same way, 4x4=16x3 =48
or forty-eight dollars for the pearl. This
rule applies to all symmetrical, first-class
pearls except surpassingly fine ones which of
course will bring fancy prices. As pearls
increase in size, the base price per grain is
increased. At five grains, the base will be
four dollars and at eight grains, six dollars.
On this base a ten-grain pearl will be worth
six hundred dollars. Very slight imper-
fections reduce the value of the pearl from
twenty to thirty per cent and greater ones

accordingly, while a chalky, dull gray or
an inferior yellowish appearance may bring
the value down, be the pearl ever so perfect
in shape, to less than a tenth of that of a
first-class gem. Good nuggets and rose
baroques usually bring from five to ten
dollars per grain. Turtle backs and hinge
baroques from ten cents to two dollars
per grain.

Imperfections

Absolute perfection in pearls as in other
gems is exceedingly rare. Besides irregu-
larities in shape, many pearls in their growth
develop rings, pits and roughnesses. These
injure the beauty and therefore the value of
the gems. As before stated, a slight imper-
fection of any kind will reduce the value of
a pearl greatly. But of all imperfections a
lustreless, lifeless character is the worst.
A pearl may lack symmetry, have pits on its
surface and rings about its circumference,
but if lustrous will still be worth something.
Without lustre it is valueless. Many pearls
are smooth and of good shape but have a
milky appearance. This is a fault of most
of the pearls found in our Eastern streams.
Others have yellowish, greenish or brownish
patches and still others a bluish, leaden cast.
The Panama pearls often show this quality.
All these imperfections detract greatly from
or wholly ruin the beauty of the gem. A
first-class pearl should be symmetrical,
smooth, free from spots or flaws of any kind

and of a bright, lively lustre. The tint may
range from a satiny white through all the
shades of the primary colors to the darkest
purple, green, red or blue but the lustre
should be clean, clear and brilliant. Such
pearls are rarely found except among those
from the pearl oyster and the mussels of
the Mississippi river and its tributaries.

Fallacies

How often one reads in the newspapers
a sensational story of how Mrs. Blank, while
eating an oyster stew, bit onto something
hard and found to her astonishment that she
was the possessor of a wonderful pearl which
the local jeweler pronounced as valuable.
This story is sometimes varied by the state-
ment that the lustre of the pearl had been
destroyed by cooking. If the “‘pearl’’ Mrs.
Blank found had been what she supposed,
the cooking would not have injured it, and
if taken from an oyster, would have been
worth no more than a gravel stone of the
same size. The concretions of limey matter
found in the edible oyster are never valu-
able for the reason that pearls are similar
in lustre to the shells in which they grow
and as the interior of the oyster is of a dull,
grayish white and never pearly, the nodules
of lime found in it are the same. ‘True
pearls are found only in shells which are
nacreous or pearly.

One reads too, of pearls becoming sick

or dying. This seems to be a favorite story
and is often repeated. It probably has its
origin in the fact that the outer skin of a
pearl, after years of wear, may become
dimmed and lose a part of its lustre. As
pearls are composed of concentric layers of
nacre arranged like the coats of an onion,
the outer layer if dimmed through wear
may be removed, when a lively pearl will be
found beneath. Pearls are among the most
lasting of valuable things for although they
are comparatively soft and may be easily
scratched, they are very tough and one may
be pressed beneath the heel or driven into
a block of hard wood with a mallet without
injuring it a particle. Pearls are solid to
the center but they may, like the diamond,
the hardest of all known things, be crushed
by a blow from a hammer. Many suppose
pearls need cutting or polishing to perfect
them. On the contrary, the pearl is the only
gem which leaves nature’s laboratory, per-
fect and complete.

Imitations

Like many other rare and beautiful things,
pearls are imitated more or less successfully
but to tell the difference between the real
and the spurious is not so difficult as it
may at first seem. The most dangerous
imitations are the culture pearls made by
the clever Japanese who place beads of
porcelain or mother of pearl under the

mantle of the living pearl oyster, and allow
them to remain there until coated with
a layer of nacre. These are often very
beautiful but as they are held stationary
against the shell and are not enclosed in
the mantle and therefore cannot revolve,
they are not pearls. The face of these
culture pearls is rarely smooth and the
back is fitted with a piece of mother of
pearl to help round them out. As the
only safe way to purchase pearls is unset,
when all their imperfections may be readily
seen, no one need be deceived by these imi-
tations. As all are familiar with the ordin-
ary pearl beads of glass coated with a sub-
stance prepared from fish scales to give them
a pearly lustre they need not be discussed
except to state that they are usually hollow
but are sometimes filled with wax to give
them weight. Other imitations of more
recent date are the so-called reconstructed
pearls. These are lustrous, solid and look a
good deal like pearls at a little distance.
The dealers in these imitations are fond of
telling the story of their being made from
small or baroque pearls which have been
dissolved and reconstructed in some mys-
terious way into round and beautiful gems.
It will hardly be necessary to state that there
is not one word of truth in this story. If
one will examine one or more pearls in a
good light he may be certain of distinguish-
ing them from the false by observing the
following characteristics. As I write I

have before me a very beautiful, white,
ten-grain, ball pearl taken from the Wabash
River, Ill. The pearl is translucent and
when held toward the light shows a delicate,
light gray tint, darker toward the center.
As it rests on its fluff of cotton one may
see in it, first, about the circumference, a
narrow space of light gray, then one of light
purple changing to a delicate pink on
the side away from the light. Then a
splash of white light surrounded by light
blue. There are also faint suggestions of
emerald green, lavender and purple gray.
All pearls show these peculiarities in a more
or less marked degree, and no imitation I
have ever seen has this property. It is this
quality which gives to the gem its wonder-
ful fascination and the lack of which renders
all imitations so unsatisfactory.

Conclusion

Many well read and intelligent persons
are surprised to learn that fine pearls are
found in the rivers of this country. This is
not at all strange when it is remembered
that jewelers generally try to give the
impression that it is only from the Orient,
the land of romance and mystery, that
valuable pearls are obtained. We once
placed on exhibition in Boston at one of the
high-class jewelers, a number of our native
pearls, stating the circumstances connected
with their collection. A few days later we

were astonished to learn from a friend who
had made inquiry that they had all become
Orientals. It is a safe assumption that
half of the pearls sold in this country as
Orientals come from the rivers of the middle
west. The French are ready enough to pur-
chase our pearls, while wealthy Americans
who would scorn to buy a fresh water pearl in
Boston knowing it came from the Iowa
River, for instance, will pay double the price
for the same gem in Paris if told it came
from Ceylon. Many of the most magnifi-
cent pearls which were ever found have come
from the rivers of Arkansas, Kentucky,
Tennessee and Wisconsin, and we should
appreciate and take pride in the matchless
gems found in our own country. At the
World’s Fair in Chicago, one collection of
Wisconsin pearls, outrivaled the dis-
play of Oriental pearls assembled by the
gem merchants from all the great cities of
the earth. One superb necklace of pearls
taken from the White River, Arkansas, was
sold in Paris for two hundred thousand
dollars, and single American pearls have
brought from five thousand to twenty-five
thousand dollars each. The truth is, we
have right here in our own country, along
our great inland rivers, extensive beds of
pearl bearing shells which produce gems of
unsurpassed beauty.

At our home on Ox Bow Road, Wellesley
Farms, Massachusetts, we have collections
of pearls, jades and bronzes which we would
be pleased to show to those interested. We
are at home except during the summer
months.

DENTON & DENTON.

SHERMAN F. DENTON. Ropert B. DENTON.