THE ABALONES OF CALIFORNIA 



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the awabi, is a smaller species and the holes of the shell are relatively 

 large, so that only the central part is of value, chiefly for use in inlay- 

 ing. Gathering abalones is especially carried on by women divers, who 

 swim out to the fishing grounds and work in depths of from six to 

 eight fathoms. Pearls are not often found, but the meat is dried and 

 sold as dark red disks strung on sticks. 



The familiar polished abalone shells have gone all over the world 

 and everywhere are highly esteemed as ornaments. The shell is pol- 

 ished by grinding it first on a carborundum wheel until the desired 

 colors are reached. The shell is then surfaced by a wheel of felt 

 sprinkled with carborundum dust glued to the wheel. Finally it is 



Polished Black Abalone Shell. 



Shell ov the Coukugated Abaloxe. 

 The unpolished posterior half showing 

 incrusting worm tubes. 



polished with a wheel made of many layers of cotton on the edges of 

 which tripoli has been rubbed. This wheel is revolved about twenty- 

 two hundred times per minute. The quality of being easy, or hard, to 

 grind and polish is spoken of by the manufacturers as the texture of 

 the shell. 



The shells are Sorted into two classes, but ordinarily classes one and 

 two are mixed together. At Avalon, in 1870, when the meat sold for 

 five cents a pound, the green shells brought eighty dollars a ton. At 

 the present time the green shells are sold at one hundred and twenty- 

 five to one hundred and eighty dollars a ton, the black, at eighty to one 

 hundred dollars a ton, and the red, at forty to seventy-five dollars a ton. 

 The black shells, with especially good pearly centers, bring from three 

 hundred to five hundred dollars a ton. Owing to the increasing scarcity 



