The Elbert County tribune., 1912-08-31

happens that pearls found attached to the In
ner surface of the she'll This position inter
feres with the symmetry of the pearl so that
when 1t is taken 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 often highly valued. The world
renowned Southern Cross" which was valued at
910000 by the company to which it belonged, was
found at Cossack Western Australia, attached to
the central part of the inside of SHE'LL
When once the nature of pearls understood
1t but natural that many experiments were
made to produce the precious objects at will. In
fact. much attention has been paid to this very
problem by scientific men. and they 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 oyster
with a fine auger. making a small wound, and
afterwards parking" the oysters for many years
But his suggestions do not seem to have been
clearly understood and no 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 musse
but the best of these of very inferior quality
and are valuable merely as curios
At the international Fisheries exhibition held
in Berlin in 1880, pearls were shown which
had been cultivated In Germany. From looking
at these one could see that the plain relief might
be covered with nacreous substance. but the re.
naturalist to the government of Queensland and
to that of Western Australia undertook the same
experiment with the large pearloyster and a
gentleman on Thursday island tried inserting a
shot through 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 shell. The public was nat
urally greatly interested and the newspapers In
Europe and America applauded his success and
called 1t great discovery
1t may perhaps come as a surprise to many that
before DR.. Boutans attempts, a very extensive
and successful system of pearl-oyster cultivation
had been carried on ip Japan by Mr. Milimoto.
and culture pearls" had not only been produced
but placed regularly the market Even at the
present day, 1t may be claimed. that this is the
only pearioyster farm in the world which under
takes the extensive cultivation of the precious
mollirsc and produces culture pearls" on COM
mercial scale. An account of the successful enter
prise may. therefore, be not wholly devoid of In
terest.
At the Third National Industrial exhibition
held In Tokyo in 1890, Mr. Mikimoto exhibited in
the aquarium of fisheries section some living
specimens of the pearloyster. This made him ac-
quainted with Dr. Mitsukuri professor of zoology
mt the Imperial university, who first suggested to
him the possibility of cultivating pearl-oysters
and OF making them produce pearls by the use of
proper stimuli Being deeply Interested In the
subject. Mil5imoto went afterwards to the marine
biological station of the Imperial university at
Visaki. where the professor was teaching and