The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1892-08-20
FISHING FOR PEARLS.
Description of This Important Industry
In Australia.

A Description of This Important Industry
in Australia.
Around the northern and western
coasts of Australia the mother-of-pearl
shell has been found in great quanti-
ties, and it was on these coasts, which
are still uneXplored, and inhabited only
by natives, that the writer gained what
knowledge he possesses of pearl-diving
as it is followed to-day.
Formerly it was carried on in two
ways, by native divers and by dress
divers. A few years ago the aborigines
were easily induced to sign a contract
binding them to their employer for the
diving season, and in remuneration for
their labor received the usual pay
food, tobacco, clothing from the neck
TO the knees, and a blanket. They
lived aboard a schooner on the fishing
grounds during the five summer months,
diving from small boats without the aid
of sinker or other appendage, and in
water from twenty TO sixty feet deep.
Each boat was in charge of white
man, who sculled the boat along and
kept his boys up to the mark. Ex-
cepting an hour for dinner, they re-
manned away from the schooner from
sunrise to sunset. A good native diver,
If shells were moderately plentiful,
would get from sixty to one hundred
shells per day.
A curious feature among the native
divers is that toward the end of the
season their long, curly, jet-blaclz hair
becomes a straw color, presumably
10 Cf
and the sun, and forms a ludicrous con-
trast to their intensely black faces and
bodies. Since bleaching the hair has
become fad" among civilized nations
perhaps the above recipe may prove
useful to some of my readers.
Native divers are not in much request
at this time, owing to the shell being
pretty well worked out in shallow
waters, and it has been found by long
practical experience that naked native
divers cannot work with any degree Of
success beyond depth of ten fathoms.
For this reason it will be readily under
stood that, as the greater part of the
shells now found have to be searched
for at depth of water exceeding ten
fathoms, they can be obtained only by
means of the well-lnown diving-dress.
During three years spent on the coast
of western Australia | never knew an
instance where an aborigine had been
broken in to work in % diving-dress,
their objection to it arising from some
superstition. The greatest depth at
which pearl-shells were found in paya-
BILE quantities when left, in 1888, was
eighteen fathoms, and the main portion
of the diving is now done by white men
and few Mongolians.
Dress-diving is by far the most APP
proved method, as the diver can remain
under water an hour or two If he
chooses, can dive much deeper than the
natives, and is able to work all the year
round. The style of boat universally
used for this work is the lugger, which
is good sea-boat and easy to handle.
1t ranges in size from ten to twenty
tons, is filed with air-pumps, and car
ries crew of six men and a diver
The crews are almost entirely Malays,
who are brought down from Singapore
by the regular steamer Australind,
owned by c. Bethel, of London, which
runs up and down the coast and supplies
the pearlers with provisions, ETC., and
by which the shells are shipped for the
London market. / should mention here
that pearl-fshing means not only fish
ing for pearls, but also for the shells in
which they are found, the latter being
really the "bread and butter" Of the
diver, and worth from one hundred to
one hundred and fifty pounds per ton.
In ton of shells there is always a
quantity of seed-pearls, probable hun
dred or more; but good pearls are not
to be reckoned on as certainties, as one
man may open ten tons and not find
stone worth ten dollars, while another
man may take a small fortune out of a
days gathering. The average weight
of a pair Of shells is two pounds.-H. p
Whitmarsh, in Century