PEARLS AND IMITATION PEARLS 93 



they were commonly given as bribes in obtaining 

 political influence in ancient Rome. Some historians 

 assert that one of the important motives which 

 prompted Caesar's conquest of England was the 

 Roman desire for British pearls. The search for 

 pearls drew many Spanish colonists to South Ameri- 

 ca during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 

 The fisheries of Venezuela and Panama were found 

 especially attractive. 



It is difficult if not absolutely impossible to obtain 

 reall}^^ reliable information concerning most of the 

 large historic pearls. Descriptions of pearls are 

 likely to run more to fancy than to fact. The size 

 of pearls is often multiplied in describing them. 

 Relatively few large perfect pearls have been found ; 

 invariably the very large ones are unsymmetrical. 

 The largest pearl known to exist to-day is the Hope 

 Pearl, a drop-shaped baroque in the Beresf ord Hope 

 collection at the South Kensington Museum of 

 London. It weighs 1887.70 grains (94.385 grams 

 or about 3.5 ounces). La Pellegrina, now in the 

 Museum of Zosima at Moscow, is reputed to be the 

 most perfect large pearl in existence. It weighs 

 114.45 grains (5.7 grams) and is so lustrous that it 

 appears to be transparent. 



Although to-day we value pearls much more highly 

 than the mother-of-pearl shells from which they 

 come, the savage races prefer the shells. For this 

 reason it is not surprising to know that mother-of- 

 pearl shells were utilized as ornaments by prehistoric 

 peoples long before the less conspicuous pearls came 



