THE PEARL OYSTER. 94.3 



share, and some specimens of considerable size and value 

 have been procured, especially in the rivers of Tyrone and 

 Donegal ; I have been informed of one which weighed 

 thirty-six carats (a carat is nearly four grains), and was 

 estimated at forty pounds ; but was not of perfect shape 

 and colour, otherwise it would have been more valuable. 

 Other pearls have been sold from four to ten pounds, and 

 one purchased at the latter sum was deemed so admirable 

 that, as Pennant states, Lady Glenlealy refused eighty 

 pounds for it from the Duchess of Ormonde. 



Dr. John Gwyn Jeffreys, in the second volume of his 

 scientifically-exhaustive "British Conchology" (page in), 

 treating upon the mussel in question, says :- 



" Pearls too are produced by them in considerable quan- 

 tities, although of an irregular shape and indifferent lustre. 

 Formerly they were applied medicinally as an absorbent. 

 'Great numbers are still collected at the mouth of the river 

 Conway, in North Wales, the fish being boiled and trodden 

 out by the naked feet of women. What is done with these 

 1 seed-pearls ' is a mystery. I have been told that the 

 Jews purchase them, for the Birmingham market ; and a 

 correspondent in London's Magazine of Natural History for 

 1830 mentions a surmise that they are exported to India to 

 be dissolved in the sherbet of the nabobs." 



Pearls have also been obtained from the Unionidae, or 

 Fresh-water Mussels of Scotch rivers and streams. Some 

 of these were exhibited in the Great Exhibition of 1851, 

 which were obtained from the deepest parts of the river 

 Strule, near Omagh. Similar pearls were also shown from 

 the river Ythan, Aberdeenshire. It is probable that pearls 

 from this source, collected by the ancient Britons, may 

 have given rise to the statement by Tacitus, in his " Life 

 of Agricola," of pearls " not very orient, but pale and 



