220 THE GREAT BARRIER REEF. 



north-west monsoon. As evidence in support of this conjecture, it may be mentioned that a few 

 specimens, examined later, were found on dissection to have their reproductive organs in a more 

 matured condition. 



As a general result of the experiments and investigations, it may be confidently predicted that, 

 if encouraged by favourable concessions and aided by skilled technical supervision and advice, the 

 artificial cultivation of the mother-of-pearl shell, on a system akin to that applied to ordinary 

 commercial oysters, will in the near future be a very important and profitable branch of the 

 Queensland fisheries, giving an entirely new impetus to the pearl and pearl-shelling industry as 

 at present constituted. Under existing conditions, the majority of the shelling companies and 

 shelling-station owners are reaping a scanty return for their investments. This is mainly a con- 

 sequence of the heavy costs attending the collection of the shell, and the considerable intervals 

 of bad weather during which the work cannot be prosecuted, the expensive maintenance of the 

 boats and crews remaining, meanwhile, undiminished. Facilities being by the recent Act con- 

 ceded to station-owners, to the extent of granting them durable leases of the land they occupy 

 for the prosecution of their business, — such leases including the right to utilise a certain extent 

 of the foreshore or water area in the vicinity of their stations for the formation of pearl-shell 

 beds, with the right also to select and rent any other suitable areas, within certain limits, 

 for a like purpose, — a substantial increment to the profits of the pearl-shelling fishery is now 

 attainable. Under these new auspices it would be to the advantage of the station-owners to 

 arrange with the divers to bring in a certain amount of undersized living shell every trip 

 they make. This (by a clause in the new Act suggested by the author) they are (whilst 

 restricted from placing it on the market as dead shell) fully entitled to do. By bringing in 

 even a small number at a tune, the constantly recurring trips of several boats would soon 

 accumulate a stock ol shell which after an interval of two or three years would become a 

 very valuable property. Requiring no expenditure in its maintenance, it would continually 

 multiply and increase in value. Such artificially accumulated beds, when once matured, would 

 permit of an annual output, which would add materially to the profits of the ordinary fishery 

 and yield other substantial advantages to the proprietors. The shell raised on such home 

 stations would, as a matter of business, be opened by, or in the presence of, the boat 

 owners or managers, and the pearls, which have hitherto been appropriated more or less 

 completely by the divers and boats' crews, would revert to their rightful proprietors. In 

 conjunction with the establishment of the suggested home shell-beds, it would probably be 

 fou.nd sufficient to keep the boats at work on the outer grounds only during the most 

 favourable months, of the year. Such an arrangement, if feasible, would very materially lessen 

 the present annual cost of production. 



Yox the transport of living shell from the outer grounds to the home stations in any 

 considerable quantity, well-boats, as used extensively in the European North Sea Fisheries and in 



