The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-03-03
PRODUCING PEARLS.
How Man Helps the Oyster to Lead n
Profitable Existence.
From Ia ChIcago Record.

From the Chicago Record.
Poeling pearls is a little trick which
Par1aiau jewellers have reduced to
science. They will take n pearl which Is
apparently so imperfect that 1t is scarcely
marketable, and, with skill bordering
on the marvellous, will peel off the outer
layer and dovelope 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 and an
imal tissue alternate, so that the skilled
teweller can peelan ugly. discolored pearl
and make of it quite another jewel The
tools employed are a sharp knife, ex-
tremely delicate files, soft leather, and
pearl powder. The layer of nacre is hard
and difficult to cut but the pearl reno
vator 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 a man who is specially 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 fash
ionable again. He exhibits with some
pride a large pink pearl and said that
it had been artihcially started This
brought out the fact that in China and
Japan pearl oysters are not only cult
waited but are forced to produce pearls.
A pearl is the result of an oysters efforts
to remove a source Of irritation. If a
grain of sand or some other hard sub
stance finds it's way into the shell the
oyster begins coating II with with nacre,
which gives the irritating intruder a
smoth exterior. The oyster deposits ma
ere over the offending object as long as
il remains a source Of irritation, and
the Chinese have taken advantage of this
REGULARITY Of the solitary mollusk. They
make little 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 she'll
is opened with a mother-of-pear knife,
care being taken not to injure 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 November, when they
are dredger up, opened and the nacre-
covered pellets removed with sharp
knives. The pellets are usually found fas-
Hned 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 filed 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 Chinese 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 glo-
bules of glass. He plugged the holes with
cork and left the oysters alone to manu-
facture pearls. In six months the glass
nucleus was covered with a pearly deposit
and the Frenchman reaped a beautiful
harvest 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 Chi
uese.
These artificial pearls have much OF the
lustre and beauty Of the real gems, but
are sold at much lower rate by honest
jewelers. Experts can color pearls black,
pink gray and other colors by the use Of
chemicals. For instance. a pearl put in
nitrate Of silver turns black. But pearl
raisers know a trick worth two of that.
Certain kinds Of resh water mussels bear
different colored pearls, according TO the
part of the oyster which is irritated by the
foreign substance. The artificial pearl
producer knows this and plants his seed
accordingly. In Washington is an arti-
fetal pink pearl as large as a pigeons
egg and it's 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 fiat
on one side