The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1886-06-02
THE PEARL FISHERIES.
Where the Fiahing is Done-Pcarls
Becoming Scarce.

twenty years is doing Tor pearls what lt
long ago did for oysters. Fashion also
bears its part in raising prices, and q
good set of three black pearl shirt studs
cannot now be got wholesale much under
$40. Four years ago they could be had
for less than third of the price. Mother
of pearl has risen in the market too, and
now costs nearly one shilling the pound
at the fisheries. where four pounds could
be obtained for the same money twelve
years back. The fisheries of the Red
sea and the Bay Of Beuga. are still, how
ever, rs celebrated as they ever were in
classic days, although the fair can no
longer hope for the produce by tie peck,
as Earro-at second hand-said they
used to do. For all the scarcity of
pearls, we now get them also from the
Sunda isles of the Malay archipelago, the
seas of China and Japan, from Panama,
Tahiti, the Gam bier islands, and from
Australia. The pearl market is no longer
at Rome, at the NIargaritarius porticus,
but in the hands of the Amsterdam,
Hamburg, London, and New York deal
ers, who buy up all this harvest of the
sea.
There are numerous bivalves which
give pearls, bad, indifferent or better;
but the true pearl oyster-if oyster it can
be called, for it is exactly like an exag-
gerated cockly-is the Mytilus, margari-
Uterus, or Piutadina m., which measures
from four to six inches in diameter and
an inch ard half in thickness. The
oceanic variety differs from the East In
dian, and gives finer gem. The Tua'
motu archipelago, to the east of the So
ciety islands, is perhaps the greatest
pearl fishery in the world. Of It's eighty
islands there are only some half dozen
whose wators do not produce the pearl
oyster. The natives OF this group know
no industry but fishing. Men, women,
and children, they all dive like sea fowl,
and the women arc the most expert.
Two women especially of Faiti, and one
of Anaa or Chain island, are well-known
in this rrade-more dreadful far than
sapphire gathering-for plunging into
twenty-five fathoms Of water, in the
teeth of sharks, and remaining as long
as three whole minutes under water. A
famous diver of Anaa escaped not long ago
from o shark with the loss of breast
and an arm, and many of them go down
never to come up again. If they make
too many plunges in their days work at
the beginning of the season, which COM
priscs the summer months, from Novem-
Der to February, they bring on hemor-
rhage or congestion; and, after some
years passed in the occupation, paralysis
is certain. Few of these divers work for
themselves, but can earn four shillings
day from the pearl traders. With
wooden tube some sixteen inches long,
ten inches square, and glazed at one end,
they prospect from their boats the bot
tom OF these translucid seas: the glass
end, which is put into the water, serving
the purpose Of suppressing the eye-puz-
zling surface ripple.
The diver Of the Persian gulf or of
Ceylon attaches weight of some twenty
pounds to his feet to aid in his descent,
and carries seven or eight pounds more
of ballast in his belt. He protects both
eyes and ears with oiled cotton. BAN
dages nj. mouth, and goes down forty feet
with rope. He remains down from
ffty-three to eighty seconds, and helps
himself up again by the rope. But the
Pacific diver practices the conjuror's
boast of 'no preparation" Just before
the plunge he or she draws full breath
rapidly three or four times running, and
finally, with the lungs full of air, drops
feet first to the bottom, not forty feet,
but twenty-five or thirty fathoms Q5O
feet to 1870 fcet) and comes to the surface
again with extraordinary swiftness, un-
aided in any way. Each dive generally
lasts from sixty to ninety seconds; and
only very occasionally the astonishing
maximum of three minutes. The divers
hardly ever bring up more than one oys-
ter at time; but this is chosen as likely
to contain pearls by some fancied rule of
thumb of their own, grounded on age,
form and color; and they hold the
shells tightly together as they mount.
lest the envious oyster should shed the
pearl, which the divers themselves are
very quick to conceal by swallowing if
the employers eye is not fixed on them.
Diving bells have been introduced by
some houses in the trade; but the natives
will no longer work in them. saying
they bring on early paralysis of the
legs.
Like his edible relative, the pearl oys.
ter also has his enemies and parasites. 4
fat fish, called tahe:eta by the natives
of this PolYnesian archipelago, makes
great ravages among the young fry; it
resembles the eagle lay, which is so de.
structive in European oyster beds. There
is another, long fish with powerful
jaws for crunching the full-grown oys-
ter, which is called the oiri or kotohe,
and does not seem to have been identi
fed by naturalists. There are also two
univalve shell tish-a murex, which
spends its time boring holes right
through the oyster, and photo le, which
scoops n nest for itself in the upper
shell, Just as his fellows do in the rocks
of our own coast.
But the worst pest of all is probably
marine worm, locally called the needle
worm, which pierces network of
galleries, like the book worm or the
teredo, between the outer and inner sur.
faces of the shell, and so ruins the
mother of pearl, which, when so damag
cd, is known in the trade as worm eaten.
There is small parasitical sponge, too,
which stains or :'spots" the mother Of
pearl. Polypi, Ascidians, and serpulae
all mingle in the fray; and while
the older crabs r,move the
young oysters from their beds
with their nippers to be eaten
at leisure, the crab fry get inside and
billet themselves at bed and board on
the grown oyster until they have eaten
their host out of house and home. 1t is