The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-03-07
PRODUCING PE.lHLs.
How Man Helps the Oyster to Lend n Prof
 itabIe Existence.
From the Chicago Record.l

itabIe Existence.
 From the Chicago Recordl
 Feeling pearls is q little trick which
 Parisian jewellers have reduced to a
 science They will take pearl which is apparentlys so imperfect that it is scarce ly marketable, and, with skill border ing on the marvellous, will peel off the outer layer and develop a lovely gem.
 A pearl is made up of layers of ma ere" and animal tissue. The nacre is that beautiful irredescent substance
 which gives to mother of pearl and the lining of sea shells their chief beauty. and it is especially attractive in the pearl oyster. The layers of nacre ahd animal tissue alternate, so that the skilled jeweler can peel an ugly. uls- colored pearl and make of it quite an other jewel The tools employed are sharp knife, extremely delicate tlles, soft leather and pearl powder The lay CT of nacre is hard and difficult to cut, but the pearl renovator chips it off bit by bit, feeling his way With the edge of his knife, for the layer is too thin to be seen by the unaided eye,
 In one of the workshops of Chicago IS man who Is especially devoted to pearls. He claims that a perfect pearl Is the most beautiful of gems and says that the time is coming when pearls will be fashionable again. He exhibits with some pride large pink pearl and said that it had been artificially started. This brought out the fact that in China and Japan pearl oysters are not only cultivated, but are forced to produce pearls.
 A pearl is the result of an oysters eff forts % remove a sort of irritation. r. a grain of sand finds its way into the shell the oyster begins coating 1t with nacre, which gives the irritating intrud- CT smooth exterior. The oyster depos- its nacre over the offending object as long as 1t remains a source of irrita- ton, and the Chinese have taken ad- vantage of this peculiarity of the sol- tary mollusk. They make little pellets of earth which has been dried and pow dered with the juice of camphor seeds, and during May and June plant these in the oyster. The shell is opened with a mother-of-pearl knife, care being talk en 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 un- disturbed until November, 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 jeweller. He drills a little hole into the pearl at the place where it was fastened | 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 a Frenchman has improved on | this method. He found that the Chin | ese killed many oysters by forcing the shell open to deposit the earth pellets. | The ingenious Frenchman bored holes in the shells of pearl oysters with a | small drill and then introduced through | the opening little globules of glass. He | plugged the holes with corka and left the oysters alone to manufacture i pearls. In six months the glass nucleus was covered with a pearly deposit, and the Frenchman reaped a beautiful har- vest of pearls. He did not have to bore holes in the pearls to remove the center, and his product brought higher prices than the pearls made by the 
 These artificial pearls have much of the lustre and beauty of the real gems, but are sold at much lower rate by honest jewellers. Experts can color pearls black pink, gray, and other col ors by the use of chemicals, For in- stance, a pearl put in nitrate of silver turns black. But pearl raisers know trick worth two of that. Certain kinds of fresh water mussels bear pink pearls, and pearl oysters produce different col ored pearls, according to the part of the oyster which is irritated by the for eign substance The artificial pearl producer knows this and plants his seed accordingly. In Washington is an arr tifcial pink pearl as large as a pigeons egg, and its heart Is 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 flat on one side.