The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1912-09-14
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange.

But doth suffer change
Into something rich and strange.
We see that in Shakespeare's time men had
peculiar notions about the wonders wrought by
the animals of the sea. Again. in Moore's poem.
Peri and the Pearl" find:
And precious the tear as that rain from the sky
Which turns into pearls as IT falls In the
AelIan thought that pearls we're 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. no doubt. often, seen shells OF
molluscs lined with smooth anr ridescent coat
ing which is called nacre or 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 organic matrix which
usually presents a ANIMATED texture You must
have noticed that the color and brilliancy of this
layer diner In various species of Shells For
instance in the ordinary oyster 1t is of lustre-
less white. and In kind of shell called abaone
or ear she'll tialiotis). the nacre Is OF a green
ish blue tinge. changing tn purple as you turn it
in your hand. In another kind. known as the
blacklipped-shell, (Marga,itiera). the mother-of-
pearl is of greensh black color In the shells
of the true pearloysters 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 as sand grains. microscopic organisms of
various kinds, parasitic worms, crabs, or some
times even small fishes become introduced by ac-
cident or otherwise inside the shell or into the
tissues OF the moilusc's 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 these foreign
objects and as new material is added year after
year In the form az layers these concretions
which may at first be very tiny grow to be OF
q considerable size And when this takes place
in a shell with specially beautiful nacre such as
that Of the peafloyster, the result may be an OBJ
tect of great beauty. priced from ancient times as
priceless jewel In this strange way, pearls
the handsomest products o, nature are produced.
Such being their origin. pearls may be formed
in any kind of rnollusc, bibaved or spiral And
just the OF different kinds of shells diff
fers. the pearls themselves vary according to
the she'll. which produces them. Thus the pearls
of the common oyster, the scallop and the giant
clam. milky white and not very bright while
those OF the mussel are usually black
Perhaps Won have noticed that pearls are Of
many different shapes some round some pear
shaped some egg-saeped and some of all manner
of fantastic shapes The round pear-shaped and
pearls. while those of Irregular shapes are called
the shapes OF fishes. birds wings. or creeping
worms. The seed pearls. which are generally
use for medicinal purposes BIZ the Chinese, are
always very small ami usually found together
In numbers