The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-07-05
MOTHER OF PEARL.
OF What 1t Is Made and Some of It's
Many Uses.


Many Uses.
From the New York Commercial.
Perhaps it is called mother of pearl
because in its tightly-locked bosom lies
the jewel snow drop that graces the
delicate throat of a queen. 1t is a
plain sea shell. The outside is rough
ribbed gray-the color of a November
twilight; the interior a marvellous
prism that has stored the hues of the
rainbow.
The manufacture of mother Of pearl
is an industry of no little magnitude
in New York and hereabouts. This
city and Newark are its centers. Thous-
ands of persons make livelihood con-
verting the shells into r .lnerous use
full and pretty articles of commerce.
If we were asked what is mother OF
pearl used for, the reply would prob
ably be buttons. Thousands and thous-
ands of buttons, of all sizes, are man
ufactured in New York annually, ana
the process is exceedingly interesting.
But buttons are not all. Knife han
dies, umbrella handles. revolver nam
dies, pen holders, jewelry and a score
of additional pretty and useful articles
are made from mother of pearl.
The finest shells come from the Aus
tralian archipelago. They are white
and extremely pretty. dark-tinted
shell is found off the coast of Japan;
these are from the worlds great pearl
fisheries California produces some
and the interior rivers of the United
States have their pearl producing
shells. The pearl divers bring the
s11rfa0a whore a first
search for pearls is made. The shells
are then shipped to London, the world s
great clearing house for mother OF
pearl, where they are again submitted
to careful scrutiny for jewels. The
American manufacturer gets his sup
ply largely from London. In the rae
tory, as the shells are cut, another
search for pearls is made, and not IN
frequently it is rewarded. Not all the
pearls are found loosely slowed in the
closed apartments where the soft mo-
Iusk reposes Sometimes they are Sc
GREETED in the hard casing of a shell
and are only brought to view by the
cutting saw In a Canal street factory
the other day a workman sliced S5OO
pearl into two beautiful sections and
rendered it worthless before he realized
what the saw was doing.
The manufacture of mother-of-pearl
has steadily increased in the twenty
five years since it was begun in this
country The genius of the inventor
has found no substitute for the product
of nature and the shells are not so
numerous as they were. They cost
the manufacturer an average OF 70
cents pound. The finished product,
therefore, is expensive and is likely to
be more 80, as the demand is conitn-
ually growing for mother-of-pearl ar
ticles.
The shells are about eight inches
wide and weigh less than a half pound.
They are shipped from London in 500
pound boxes. Workmen of skill in the
mother-of- pearl factories are mostly
foreign born, though American boys
are being trained in the craft. The
men are English, French and Bone
mians, who learned their trade abroad.
In the factory the shell first goes to
a skillful operator, who saws off the
rough edges, or the bark 1t is then
cut into strips, if it is thick one, and
certain parts are selected for the heaV-
Ter articles. The thin, fiat shells go to
the button machine, where the discs
are bored from it very rapidly. These
round segments are engraved on an
other machine; on another holes are
bored or the brass eye for the thread
is pressed in, then a boy polishes the
outer surface of each one by momen-
tary touch on a. carborundum wheel,
making 2,400 revolutions a minute.
Arising from the sans and cutting and
polish. machines is a fine white dust,
that settles over the interior like -four
in a mill, but the workmen are APP
parently robust and make no COM
plant of evil effects of breathing it.
While there is considerable waste ma
terial in each shell no portion of the
white mother of-pearl is permitted to
go to waste. Very small buttons, ros-
airy beads, etc, are made from the re-
jected fragments. The larger and bet
ter parts of the shell are carefully Sc
lected for ornamentation of the articles
heretofore mentioned. A very pretty
watcb~fob for men is made of a piece
of deltcately tinted mother-of-pearl ar
tistically arranged in a filigree gold
setting.
From the Mississippi river along the
borders of Iowa the greatest quantity
of fresh water shells is obtained, and
it has became a profitable business.
Uuseless portions are sawed off there.
and the entire product is shipped to
Eastern manufacturers.