Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1919-01-08
VALUABLE PEARLS ARE
ABUNDANTLY FOUND IN
AUSTRALIAN FISHERIES
Two Thousand Workers Are Employ
ed Annually i'm Fleets Along
The West Coast

THE report that the pearl fisheries
of the Orient are exhausted" said
man from the antipodes, "is not true.
The old fisheries OF the Gulf of Manar,
between Ceylon and India, have been
pretty well worked out and very few
large pearls are found there today.
But the Australian fisheries are still
rich producers and there are pearling
grounds scattered among the islands
of the South Seas which are practical
ly untouched"
The antipodean was commenting on
the recently cabled information that
a pearl weighing 100 grains and val
ued at $4,000 had been found in the
Indian ocean off Broome. West
Australia.
Pearls" he continued. ARE among
the worlds most valued jewels and
the demand for them has increased as
the supply has diminished. The Cey-
lon fisheries have been worked for
centuries. All the large pearls have
been gathered. If the beds were left
alone for a term of years the pearl
molluses might produce other large
pearls, but the divers are in a hurry
to get rch and they rob the oysters
of small and undeveloped pearls.
1.-The Australian beds are among
the richest now being worked. They
lie along the west coast near Broome
and about 1000 men are employed an
nually in the pearling fleets. The
catch averages pearls of fine size and
many of extraordinary size are taken.
The divers formerly were Malays and
Japanese, but these have been de-
ported under the new Australian laws
and their places have been taken by
white men. Broome is a town where
beach combers congregate from all
over the South Seas, and it is this
class of men that do the work of
divers. They are natural gamblers.
and the chances of enriching them
selves by bringing up big pearl ap-
peal to them.
Sometimes a big stroke of luck in
the pearl fisheries makes new men of
them. l met a typical beach comber
when l visited Broome. He was bare
foot and ragged when he got his first
chance to sail with the pearIing fleet.
When he saw the large quantity of
pearls brought back by the luggers
he was fired with new ambition. He
worked and saved and finally bought
a lugger of his own. Then heasiled
away on his first fortune hunting ex-
petition. He brought back a catch of
pearls which sold for 100000. He
then embarked in the business on
large scale, bought fleet of luggers
and now operates among the islands
of the Persian Gulf, which is rich
ground. He is millionaire now,
and WIN / met him not long ago in
the Tai Mahal hotel in Bombay, there
was nothing about the well groomed
man to indicate he had ever been a
ragged beach comber
THE lagoons of the pearl islands
and the atolls are infested with sharks
and diver takes his life in his hands
every time he goes down. Strange to
say, not a great many tragedies oc-
cur. The divers use no diving bells
or apparatus of any kind, but they go
down to the bottom and bring up
pearl mplluscs from depth of fifty
and seventy-five feet, and sometimes
have been known to reach bottom in
120 feet of water They remain under
water sometimes five minutes or more.
There are good pearl beds in the
waters about the New Hebrides, Sol
onions and the Fiji group. The ma
tives used to sell their pearls for
plug of tobacco or string of glass
beads, but they have learned more of
their value now and drive shrewder
bargains"