The Natchitoches enterprise., 1912-10-03

banneps that pesrls are found attached to the in
ner surface of the she'll. This position inter
feres with the symmetry OF the pearl SO tnat
when it is taken out of the shell it is fiat on one
side, making what is known as perle bouton
The attached pearls not always OF inferior
quality but are often highly valued. The world
renowned Southern Cross which was valued at
10000 by the company to which it belonged, was
found at Cossack, Western Australia, attached to
the central part of the inside of a shell.
When once the nature of pearls was understood,
it was but natural that many experiments were
made to produce Tie precious objects at will. In
fact much attention has been paid to this very
problem by scientific men, and they are still at
work upon it.
1t is well known that Linnaeus, the father of
natural history claimed that pearls could be pro-
cured by piercing holes in the shell of an oyster
with a fine auger, making small wound, and
afterwards parking" the oysters for many years.
But his suggestions do not seem to have been
clearly understood and no one has been able to
pursue his method successfully The Chinese as
is well known have been specially successful in
raising pearls by inserting grains of clay between
the shell and the thin outer membrane which
covers the soft body of the freshwater mussel,
out the best of these of very inferior quality
and valuable merely curios.
At the International Fisheries exhibition, held
in Berlin in 1880, some pearls We're shown which
had been cultivated In Germany From looking
at these could see that the plain relief might
be covered with nacreous substance but the re-
suit of little value Mr.. Savie Kent late
naturalist to the government of Queensland and
to that of Western Australia, undertook the same
experiment with the large pearl-oyster, and
gentleman on Thursday island tried inserting
shot through a hole in the she'll
The most important Of such experiments are
probably those of DR.. Louis Boutan OF Paris who
succeeded some seven years ago in producing
pearls in the abalone she'll The public was nat
urally greatly interested. and the newspapers in
Europe and America applauded his success and
called it a great discovery,
It may perhaps come as surprise to many that
before DR.. Boutan's attempts, a very extensive
and successful system of pearloyster cultivation
had been carried on in Japan by Mr. Mikimoto,
and culture pearls" had not only been produced
but placed regularly on the market Even at the
present day, it may be claimed. that this is the
only pearloyster farm in the world which under
takes the extensive cultivation of the precious
mercial scale. An account of the successful enter
terest
held In Tokyo in 1890 Mr. Mikimoto exhibited in
the aquarium of fisheries section some living
specimens of the pearloyster This made him &C
quainted with Dr., Mitsukuri. professor of zoology
at the Imperial university. who first suggested to
him the possibility Of cultivating pearloysters
and OF making them produce pearls by the use of
proper stimuli Being deeply interested in the
subject. Mikimot6 went afterwards TO the marine
biological station OF the Imperial university at
visak. where the professor was teaching, and