The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1899-05-27

Weighing ninety-three grains. was
found at Notch Brook, near Paterson,
New Jersey. The Empress Eugene
bought It for twenty-five hundred dol
lars, a quarter of it's present value. 1t
was the discovery Of this pearl that
called attention to the fresh-water,
pearl-bearing mollusks of North Amer
lea and led to other finds" which are
described at length in a bulletin pre-
pared for the Fish Commission by Mr..
George r. Kunz.
Mr.. Kunz reminds us that the very
Oldest inhabitants were pearl-hunters.
The mound-builders possessed pearls
literally bushels of them. At a mound
in the Little Miami Valley, Professor
Putnam and Doctor Metz unearthed
o than sixty t~housand-all, of
course, decayed or altered so as to be
OF no commercial value. The Indians,
succeeding the mound-builders, like
wise sought and treasured them.
The Spanish explorers proved as
partial to pearls as they were to all
other forms Of portable property. The
historian of the expedition says that by
rifing the sepulchers in one Indian
town In Florida, De Soto and his band
obtained more than three hundred and
nfty pounds. Probably many Of these
pearls were, in a way, artificial, man
fractured from the shell. But there Is
no doubt that pearls were much more
numerous in the explorers time than
they were when ~rediscovered, SO to
speak, in 1857-just as they were more
numerous in 1857 than they are now.
The p~earl-hunting Of the last forty
years has been carried on at intervals
all the way from Nova Scotia to Wis
consin, and then south as far as Florida.
h fever" seems to break out about
once In ten years. In the 1897 cpl
demic Arkansas was first and chiefly
affected. In certain parts of that state
pearls had been found frequently and
used as children's playthings and as
"luck-stones," with no idea of their
value.
A young st. Louis man, spending his
vacation on a fishing trip, picked up a
few on the shore Of Murphy Lake.
the negro guide laughed at him,-and
sent them to city jewelers.. The check
that came back inspired a company to
lease the whole lake and work 1t, with
good results. Discoveries in other
places fostered the excitement.
A pink pearl of thirty-one grains,
found on Black river, Arkansas, netted
the finder thirty-five dollars and the
purchaser five hundred. From the Lit
tie Red river, in a short time, a man
o fifteen hundred dollars worth Of
pearls. A Kansas man found eleven
lavender-colored pearls, which he sold
for six hundred dollars. At one drive
with his drag-shovel across a little
stream, a Missouri farmer collected
more than two hundred pearls, some
as large as peas.
Unfortunately, these gatherers, with
few exceptions, did their work waste
fully. European pe%arl-hunters have
instruments with which they open the
shell without injuring the animal, and
II they find no pearl they return the
she'll to the water. Our pearl-seekers
throw away the shell and the edible
meat, and foolishly open the very
smallest mussels, which seldom con-
tain pearls.
Then, too, certain factories in the
west are beginning to use great uuan-
titles Of shells in the manufacture of
pearl buttons. Supplies for these fac
tories are accumulated by means of
steam dredges. which sweep the deeper
waters where the ordinary hunter
could not venture. And so between the
button-maker and the careless pearl
hunter, the fresh-water mussels OF the
United States seem destined to ex.
tinction.
The r Is worth preserving. Their.
Is always a chance of a find" like that
blue pearl from Caney Fork, Tennes
see, which fetched thirty-three hun.
dred dollars in London a few wears
ago. But the haphazard methods that
now prevail are equally destructive and
dangerous. Pearl-collecting Ia an in.
dustry In which stupidity command:
no premium. Mr.. Kunz tells us thai
what would doubtless have been thu
finest pearl Of modern times wa.
- L. A.