The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1899-05-20
PEARL HUNTING IN AMERICA.

PEARL HUNTING IN AMEHlcA.
1 In the year 1857 pearl Of fine luster,
Weighing ninety-three grains, was
found at Notch Brook, near Paterson,
New Jersey. The Empress Eugenie
bought it for twenty-five hundred dol
lars. a quarter OF its present value. It
was the discovery Of this pearl that
called attention to the fresh-water,
pear1-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 f. KunZ. @
Z Mr.. Kunz reminds us that the very
oldest Inhabitants were pearl-hunters.
The mound-builders possessed pearls
literally bushels of them. At mound
IN the Little Miami Valley, Professors
Putnam and Doctor. Metz unearthed
more than sixty thousand 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.
i. 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
rlt1ing the sepulchers in one Indian
town in Florida, De Soto and his band
obtained more than three hundred and
htty pounds. Probably many of these
pearls were, in a way, artificial, man
utactured 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 pearl-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.
The 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
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 company to
lease the whole lake and work it, 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 short time, man
took 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 dFag-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 pearl-hunters have
instruments with which they open the
shell without injuring the animal, and
if they find no pearl they return the
shell 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 GUAM
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 crop is worth preserving. There
is always a chance of a "find' like that
blue pearl from Caney Fork, Tennes-
see, which fetched thirty-three him.
dred dollars in London a few wears
ago. But the haphazard methods that
now prevail are equally destructive and
dangerous. Pearl-collecting is an in
dustry in which stupidity commands
no premium. Mr.. Kunz tells US that
what would doubtless have been the
finest pearl Of modern times was
ruined by the ignorant finder, who
boiled it to open the shell.