Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1912-08-30
But doth suffer sea change
Into something rich eand strange.

Into something rich strange.
We see that in Shakespeare's time men had
peculiar notions about the wonders wrought by
the animals of the Again. in Moore's poem,
Peri and the Pearl" we find;
And precious the that rain from the sky
Which turns into pearls as it falls in the
Aeian 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 ex-
plantations of the formation of these beautiful
products of nature.
You have doubt often shells OF
molluscs lined with smooth iridescent coat
ing which is called mother-ofpearl.
This coating like the rest of the SHE'LL is pro-
duced by the animal and is made up mostly of
carbonate of lime and an organic matrix which
usually presents Illuminated texture. You must
have noticed that the color and brilliancy of this
layer differ in various species of shells. For
instance in the ordinary oyster 1t is of lustre
less white and In kind of shell called abaIone
or ear shell (Haliotis). the nacre is of green
ish blue tinge changing to purple YOU turn it
in your hand In another kind, known the
black-lipped-shell, (Iargaritifera) the mother-of
pearl is of a greenish black color. In the shells
of the true pearLeysters the nacre is of clear,
delicate white, which has the sheen of floss silk
family tinted with azure. exhibiting beautiful
play of color-a quality which makes these shells
/ of great value In commerce.
/ Now it often happens that foreign substances,
/ such 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 mouscs soft body In such cases.
the animal sometimes begins to deposit part Of
the material which goes to form the nacreous
layer of the shell around over these foreign
| objects and material is added year after
year in the form of layers these concretions
| which may at first be very tiny grow to be Of
q considerable size. And when this takes place
In shell with specially beautiful nacre such as
that of the pearl-oyster, the result may be an OBJ
| ject of great beauty priced from ancient times as
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, hibalved spiral And
Just as the nacre of different kinds of shells diff
fers so the pearls themselves vary according tc
the she'll, 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 mussei 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 manne
I of fantastic shapes The round, pear-shaped anC
egg-shaped ones are known as oriental or virgin
pearls, while those OF irregular shapes are called
l. baroque pearls These sometimes found Il
9 the shapes of fishes, birds wings, or creeping
o worms The seed pearls which are general
a use for medicinal purposes by the Chinese ar
IS always very small and usually found togethe
IN numbers.