Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1912-08-29
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange

We see that in Shakespeares time men had
peculiar notions about the wonders wrought by
the animals of the sea. Again, in Moore's poem,
Peri and the PEARL we find:
And precious the tear as that rain from the sky
Which turns into pearls as it falls Ill the sea.
AeIian thought that pearls were produced by
lightning flashing into the open shells.
Turning from these fantastic, though interest
Ing, theories let us glance at the modern
plantations of the formation of these beautiful
products of nature
You have, no doubt, often seen shells of
moluscs lined with a smooth anr iridescent coat
ing which is called nacre or motheTof-pearl
This coating, like the rest of the shell, is pro-
duced by the animal and is made up mostly of
carbonate of lime and organic matrix which
usually presents Illuminated texture. You must
have noticed that the color and briliancy Of this
layer differ in various species of shells. For
instance in the ordinary oyster it is of lustre-
less white, and in a kind of shell called abalone
or ear shell CHaliotis), the nacre is of a green
ish blue tnge, changing to purple you turn it
in your hand. In another kind, known the
blac6iipped-sheu, CMargaritifera), the mother-of-
pearl is of a greenish black color In the shells
of the true pearloysters the nacre is of a clear,
delicate white, which has the sheen of floss silk
family tinted with azure, exhibiting beautiful
play of coIor-a quality which makes these shells
of great value in commerce.
Now it often happens that foreign substances,
such as sand grains, microscopic organisms of
various kinds, parasitic worms, crabs, or some
times even small fishes become introduced by &C
cident or otherwise inside the shell or into the
tissues of the mollusc's soft body. In such cases.
the animal metimes begins to deposit a part of
the material which goes to form the nacreous
layer Of the shell around or over these foreign
objects and as new material is added year after
year in the form of layers these concretions
which may at first be very tiny grow ITO be of
a considerable size. And when this takes place
IN shell with specially beautiful nacre such as
that of the pearloyster the result may be an OBJ
feet of great beauty, priced from ancient times as
q priceless jewel In this strange way, pearls
the handsomest products of nature are produced.
Such being their origin, pearls may be formed
in any kind of mollusc. bibalved or spiral And
just the nacre of different kinds of shells diff
fers so the pearls themselves vary according to
the shell, which produces them. Thus the pearls
of the common oyster, the scallop and the giant
clam, are milky white and not very bright while
those OF the sea mussel are usually black.
Perhaps you have noticed that pearls are of
many different shapes, some round. some pear
shaped, some egg-shaped and some of all manner
of fantastic shapes. The round pear-shapad and
egg-shaped ones are known as oriental or virgin
pearls, while those of irregular shapes are called
baroQue pearls. These are sometimes found in
the shapes of fishes, birds wings, or creeping
worms. The seed pearls, which are generally
use for medicinal purposes by the Chinese are
always very small and usually found together
in numbers.