56 



BRITISH PEARLS. 



notion prevails that Sir Richard Wynn, of Gwydir, chamber- 

 lain to Catherine, Queen of Charles II., presented her 

 Majesty with a pearl taken in the Conway, which is to this 

 day honoured with a place in the regal crown.* Sir Robert 

 Redding, in 1693, sent to the Royal Society a pearl-mussel 

 from Ireland which yielded a pearl that was sold for twelve 

 pounds, a large sum, when you consider that this was nearly 

 one hundred and fifty years ago. The same Sir Robert, 

 when in Ireland, " saw one pearl bought for fifty shillings, 

 that weighed thirty -six carats, and was valued at 40/., 

 and had it been as clear as some others produced there- 

 with, would certainly have been very valuable. Everybody," 

 he continues, " aboimds with stories of the good penny- 

 worths of the country, but I will add but one more : a mil- 

 ler took out a pearl, which he sold for 4/. 10*. to a man 

 that sold it for 10/., who sold it to the late Lady Glenanly 

 for 30/., with whom I saw it in a necklace ; she refused 

 80/. for it from the late Duchess of Orniond."f 



The British pearls, as you will have noticed, are generated 

 in the fresh-water mussel (Unio margaritiferus, Fig. 8, b), 

 which lives in cold rapid rivers. In Wales, the Conway has 

 been long celebrated for them, — 



" Whose pretious orient pearls that breedeth in her sand, 

 Above the other floods of Britain doth her grace ; " 



and the fishery still exists ; though, according to Dr. Mac- 

 culloch, it is the source of anything but good,— "a lottery 

 which produces universal poverty among the people who 

 pursue it." A recent account represents the case more 

 favourably, and informs us, that there are a number of per- 

 sons who live by this alone, and where there is a small family 

 to gather the shells and pick out the fish, it is preferable to 

 any other daily labour.]; The pearls are disposed of to an 

 overseer, who pays for them by the ounce, the price varying 

 from 1*. 6d. to 4*. What is done with them seems to be in- 

 volved in mystery : they are, with few exceptions, useless as 

 ornaments, and the exceptions seem scarcely sufficient to 

 support any profitable speculation ; so that I give no credit 



* Pennant, Brit. Zool., iv. 163. 



t Phil. Trans, xvii. 660. In Sir W. Scott's description of the bridal 

 attire of the Maid of Lorn, one of her attendants is thus introduced : — 



" While on the ankle's slender round 

 Those strings of pearl fair Bertha wound, 

 That, bleach'd Z'Ochri/ftn\'i clepf/is luithin, 

 Seem'd dusky still on Edith's skin." 



Lo7'd i>f'the Isles, canto i. 5. 

 t Mag. Nat. Hist. iii. 132. 



