The times and democrat. [volume] (Orangeburg, S.C.) 1881-current, 1908-06-12
MODERN P[IDL INDUSTRY.
New Methods Have Changed
the Work of Gathering.
.PEARLER WELL EQUIPPED
With u Suit Of India Rubber, Copper
Breastpiates, and Leaden Weights
He Desccnds to the Bottom Of the
Sea-Spcnds From Six to Eight
Hours There.

The Seryilia pearl given by julius
Caesar to Brutus' mother was said to
have been worth S175,000, says Lon.
don Tit-Bits. For pearl an inch
| In diameter Persian shah of the
seventeenth century is said to have
paid S320,000. The pearl market is
somewhat lower nowadays, but prices
are still high enough to make diving
profitable.
The era of naked divers exposed
to peril from sharks has passed
away. Modern progress equips the
pearler with suit OF india rubber.
copper breastplate, with leaden
weights back and front; helmet, glass
panelled and with telephone attach.
mepts; air pipes, life lines and q
submarine searchlight. Thus equip
ped the pearl diver may spend-six o:
eight hours at the bottom OF the sea,
whereas in olden times three minutes
| made a record.
Although pearls are found in near
ly all moilusks and even in univalves
like the Australian haliotis, kind
Of barnacle, true pearls are produced
only by the pearl oyster or mother
or pearl she'll The latter is really
the Divers bread and butter. The
shells are as big as dinner plates and
weigh two pounds when cleaned
They fetch from $500 to $3.50 ton
The ancient fisheries were chiefly
IN the Indian Ocean and Persian Gull
but nowadays the best pearls coma
from Ceylon and from Australia
waters, especially Torres Straits,
Pearl fishing in Ceylon is a govern.
ment monopoly. In March the fleet
starts for the pearling grounds, each
vessel with twenty or thirty divers
and their assistants. But the head
quarters OF pearling are to be fonno
in the desolate country extending
from Exmouth Gulf to King Sound.
In Western Australia.
A glistening white coast line is
this, whose monotony is broken only
BY mango fringed salt water creeks
and scorching deserts of spinifex and
sand. Long before inland gold was
dreamed of rowing natives fshed
these seas for pearls, and they paid
many visits to Roebuck Bay and
what is now the pearl town ol
Broome.
Chinese and Malays as we'll az
tribes of native black fellows ara
there to-day, but tie old nude div
ers, the reign Of terror and piracy
when a large haul was made-these
and similar conditions have passed
away, giving place to fleets and lug.
gers carrying modern diving outfits
and representatives Of the inevitable
capitalist in the person OF the master
.pearlers. Here are six hundred
miles Of coast line, with perhaps five
thousand hardy adventures engag-
ed in the pearl trade.
There are some thousands of Jap.
anese, Manilamen,. Malays and men
of other races acting chiefly as crews
for the vessels. The vessels are
schooner rugged and from seven TO
tounteen tons burden. Each carries
a master diver and crew of four,
one of whom is the divers assistant
and works the air pumps. Another
holds the life line and pays attention
to signals; another is catching fish
Or peeling potatoes for dinner, and
IL may be third has gone off in the
dingey for fresh water and fire-wood.
The shells are found on ledges
about ninety feet down in the sea,
but they are far more plentiful at
greater depth. Fortune awaits the
inventor of a diving apparatus which
will enable the pearler to work in
comfort one hundred fathoms down.
The lugger has low freeboard to
allow the diver with his heavy dress
and gear to be easily hauled on
board. He carries a net holding the
shells with him, and when this is
full he has it hauled up so that ne
himself may run no risk Of entang-
ling life line or air pipe.
When the pearler works at, say,
twenty fathoms he moves easily, not
withstarding his forty-pound boots.
amid groves of coral trees, interlac-
ed with futtering, fern-like plants,
among whose branches swim gorge
Gus tropical fish and sinister water
snakes, which seem to resent the in
truyion of so strange a monster.
A good days work is anything
more than two hundred pairs OF
shells. The business is absolutely
speculative. One diver may gather
ton after ton of shells without Sc
curing anything of greater value
than a few seed pearls, while an
other may take a fortune out In a
days gathering.
The most famous pearl discover
ed in Australia of late years is known
as the Southern Cross. 1t consists
of a cluster Of nine pearls III the
shape of cross. This freak Of ma
t.re was picked up at low water on
the Laclpede Island by beachcomb-
ny named Clark. who. after bnryin:
1t for some time for superstitious
reasons, sold it for $50; later. it
brought $4,000.
The pearl diver Of to-day, protect
ed as he is by every device known
to modern submarine engineering, is
exposed to many perils. He may lose