Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1895-01-26
ARTIFICIAL PEARLS.
Unwittingly Manufactured by Poor,
Deluded Mollusks
They Can Be Turned Out Of Any
Size and Color.

In some Of the down town buildings
ofChicago are little rooms which are
the workshops of artificers in gold,
silver, and precious stones. In one
of these rooms is workman who is
specially devoted to pearls. He claims
that perfect pearl is the most beauti-
full Of gems, and says the time is com
ing when pearls will be fashionable
again.
He exhibited with some pride II
largo pink pearl, and said that it had
been aliilicaliy started. This brought
out the fact that in China and Japan
pearl oysters are not onl ly cultivated
but are forced to produce pearls. A
pearl is the result of an oysters efforts
to remove source OF irritation. If a
grain Of sand or some other hard sub
stance finds its way into its shell the
oyster begins coating it with
nacrc, which gives the irritating
intruder smooth exterior The oyster
deposits nacre over the offending
object as long sit remains source
of irritation, and the Chinese have
taken advantage of this peculiarity of
the solitary mollusk. They make lit
tie pellets of earth which has been
dried and powdered with the juice of
camphor seeds, and during May and
June plant these in the oyster. The
shell Is opened with a mother-o -of-pearl
knife, care being taken not to iniure
the oyster, and the earth pills are laid
under the oysters beard. The treated
mollusks are then placed in canals and
pools and left undisturbed until No
vember, when they are dredged up,
opened and the nacre-covered pellets
removed with sharp knives. The
pellets are usually found fastened
tightly to the inner surface of the
shells.
The Chinese pearl farmer then turns
ieweler. He drills little hole into
the pearl at the place where ii was fas-
tened to the shell and removes the
dirt. The cavity is filled with yellow
rosin and the opening sealed neatly
with tiny bit of mother.of-pearl.
But Frenchman has improved on
this method He found that the
Chinese killed many oysters by fore
ing the shell lids open to deposit the
earth pellets. The ingenius French
man bored holes in the shells of pearl
oysters with a small drill and then in
troduced through the opening little
globules of glass. He plugged the
holes with corks and left the oysters
alone to manufacture pearls. In six
months the glass nucleus was covered
with pearly deposit, and the French
man reaped beautiful harvest of
pearls. He did not have to bore
holes in the pearls to remove the cen
ter, and his product brought higher
prices than the pearls made by the
Chinese
These artificial pearls have much of
the luster and beauty of the real gems,
but are sold ut much lower rate by
most jewelers.. Experts can color
pearls black, pink, grey and other
colors by the use of chemicals. For
instance, Il pearl put in nitrate of sill
yer turns black. But pearl raisers
know a trick worth two of that. Ger
tain kinds of fresh water mussels bear
pink pearls, and pearl oysters produce
different colored pearls, according to
the part of the oyster which is irri-
tated by the foreign substance. The
artificial pearl producer knows this
and plants his seed accordingly. In
Washington is an artificial pink pearl
as large us II pigeons egg, and its
heart is n bit of beeswax.
Perfectly round pearls which weigh
over twenty-five grains each are scarce
and command large prices, but such
pearls are natural. Artificial pearls
are usually fiat on one side Chicago
Record.
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