Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1899-06-01
THEPHILIPPINE PEARLS.
FISHERIES CONSIDERED THE MOST
IMPORTANT IN THE WORLD.

! '"' Sh NV IT1C WShECs
The Richest Grounds Are in ths su1u
Group-Controlled by Great London
Jewelry Firm-M other Of Pearl Worth
One Hundred Dollars n Ton.
In the picturesquely miscellaneous
collection of Sultans, active volcanoes,
raiahs Dyak pirates, and so forth,
handed over to the United States in
the far Pacific as one result of the
Spanish war, are the important pearl
fisheries at the Su.u Islands-pearl
fisheries that, since the decline Of
those Of Ceylon and the Persian Gulf,
divide with the north coast of Aus
tralia the reputation of being the most
valuable in the world.
The Sulu pearl grounds have for
some time been controlled by men or
companies with large capital, of which
the chief is a great London jewelry
firm. These capitalists equip and send
out fleets of from twenty to thirty
moderate sized schooners upon annual
cruises, and employ in the pursuit,
besides European officers and super
cargoes, many hundreds, if not thou
sands, of native divers.
1t may be information to many that
the chief revenue of the pearl fishing
| industry is derived not from the pearls
"a very uncertain contingency-but
from the pearl shells, or moth er-of-
pearl, which brings in the market $100
ton and upward. AS an illustration
of this, while the West Australian
pearl fisheries netted in one year
! $4,000 from the shells, the returns
| from the find of pearls was valued at
a little more than $150,000, OF about
one-third. In this respect, while the
pearls found in the Sulus are of the
finest quality, the mother of pearl is
sometimes characterized by yellow
ish tint, which renders it less valuable
commercially than that obtained on
the adjacent Australian banks.
The actual diving operations are
carried ON chiefly By the natives,
though of late years Europeans, with
diving apparatus, have in some in
stances been employed. The former
method is simplicity itself. The
diver being denuded of his clothes
and provided with a knife and a small
net bag in which to gather the shells,
and having forty-pound stone at
tached to his feet, draws deep
breath, and is let rapidly down by
rope into the transparent waters. The
depth at which pearl diving is gener-
ally carried on is from thirty to forty
feet, though depths of eighty feet
hn haat, th,,c raonI,a1 60
stances. Once at the bottom, the
diver quickly proceeds to cut the
shells from the rocks in his neighbor-
hood, and while filling his bag re-
mains under water for period of
sixty to hundred seconds.
While thus engaged the divers are
sometimes subject to the attacks of
sharks, but they find far deadlier
enemy in the exhausting nature of
their work, carried on beneath the
waters of the tropics. Their lives are
generally of short duration after once
adopting the profession.
When vessel has received its full
capacity of from twenty to thirty
thousand shells, it is put into the
shore, where the cargo is landed and
piled high on the beach for the sun to
assist in causing the decomposition of
the dead fish, SO that the pearls may
be the more easily obtained. During
the cleaning and washing process
J great care is exercised in order to dis
cover the loose pearls, which, being
nearly all perfect spheres, are the
most valuable for stringing or neck
lace purposes; after which the shells
are examined for those that may re-
main attached, furnishing the many
quaint shapes to be seen in jewelers.
windows. Pearls of value are seldom
discovered in shells under four years
of age-the age being computed by
the weight of the shells-and eight
years, it would seem, being the ex-
treme limit of pearl mussel longevity.
The pearls found in the Sulus are
remarkable for their fine white color
and soft iridescent sheen, and up till
the present have found their principal
market in London, but now that the
archipelago has become an outlying
territory of the United States one may
naturally expect that these gems will
come more into favor on this side of
the Atlantic than heretofore. New
York Sun.
"Hot Time" Does Duty as Dirge.