Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1912-08-30
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hannens that uearls are found attached to the In
ner surface of the shell. This position inter
feres with the symmetry Of the pearl SO that
when it is taken out Of the shell it is fat on one
side, making what is known as 'perle bouton.
The attached pearls are 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 she'll
When once the nature of pearls was understood,
it was 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 fine auger making small wound and
afterwards parking the oysters for many years
But his suggestions do not to have been
clearly understood and no one has been able to
pursue his method successfully. The Chinese, as
is we'll 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,
but the best of these of very inferior quality
and valuable merely as curos
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 one could that the plain relief might
be covered with nacreous substance but the re-
suit was Of little value Mr.. Saville Kent late
naturalist to the government of Queensland and
to that of Western Australia undertook the same
experiment with the large pearl-oyster and a
gentleman on Thursday island tried inserting a
shot through a hole in the shell.
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 abaone shell. The public was nat
orally greatly interested and the newspapers in
Europe and America applauded his success and
called it great discovery
1t may perhaps come as surprise to many that
before DIR. Boutan's attempts, very extensive
and successful system of pearl-oyster cultivation
had been carried on In Japan by a 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
moilusc and produces culture pearls" on com.
mercia scale. An account of the successful enter
terest
held In Tokyo in $780, 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
at the Imperial university. who first suggested to
him the possibility Of cultivatng pearloysters
and Of making them produce pearls by the use of
proper stimuli. Being deeply interested IN the
subject Mikimoto went afterwards to the marine
biological station Of the Imperial university at
Visaki where the professor was teaching and