The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1910-03-17
MODERN PEARL INDUSTRY.
New Methods Have Changed
the Work of Gathering.
PEARLER WELL EQUIPPED


ne SerNllla pearl given by julius
Caesar to Brutus' motheE was said to
have been worth $4,000, says Lon
don Tit-Bits. For a pearl an inch
In diameter n Persian shah of the
seventeenth century is said to have
paid 100000. 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
pearlor with suit OF india rubber,
copper breastplate, with leaden
weights bacl, and front; helmet, glass
panelled and with telephone attach
ments; air pipes, lie lines and a
submarine searchiight, Thus equip
ped the pearl diver may spend six or
eight hours at the bottom OF the sea,
whereas in olden times three minutes
made Il record.
Although pearls are found in near
ly all mollusks ana even in univalves
like the Australian haliotis, a kind
Of barnaCle, true pearls are produced
only by the pearl oyster or mother
OF pearl shell. 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 a ton.
The ancient fisheries were chiefly
in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf
but nowadays the best pearls come
from Ceylon and from Australian
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 found
in the desolate country extending
from EXmouth Gulf to King Sound,
In Western Australia.
A glistening white coast line is
this, whose monotory 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 fished
these seas for pearls, and they paid
many visits to Roebuck Bay and
Broome.
Chinese and Malays as we'll as
tribes of native black fellows ara
there to-day, but the 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 adventurers 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 rigged and from seven to
founteen tons burden. Each carries
a master diver and crew of four,
one of whom is the divers assistant
and works the air pumps. Another
to signals; another is catching fish
or peeling potatoes for dinner, and
it may be third mas gone off in the
dingey for fresh water and fire-wood.
The shells are found on lodges
about ninety feet down in the sea,
but they are far more plentiful at
greater depth. Fortune awaits the
In ~ Of 1iyipIo 20, ;oI.
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 net holding the
shells with him, and when this is
full he has it hauled up so that he
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
withstanding his forty-pound boots,
amid groves of coral trees, interlac-
ed with fluttering, fern-like plants,
among whose branches swim gorge
Gus tropical fish and sinister water
budhto, WuiCu StclH W ItSeII Ille
trusion 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 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 cluster of nine pearls in the
shape of cross. This freak of ma
ture was picked up at low water on
the Lacipede Island by beachcomb-
ell named Clark, who, after burying
1t for some time for superstitious
reasons, sold it for $50; later, it
brought $4,000.