90 Beautiful Shells. 
recorded of one rich mollusk, that there were found 
in his possession no less than one hundred and fifty 
precious jewels; he must have been a miser, or 
perhaps he had taken them in pledge from his less 
provident neighbours. 
From the earliest time, pearls have been con- 
sidered as valuable ornaments; they are mentioned 
in the book of Job (see chap. xxviii. verse 18), 
and are often alluded to by Greek and Roman 
writers. Various attempts have been made to 
imitate them, and one mode of producing them, 
practised, it is said, more than a thousand years 
ago, is still carried on in China. In the shells of 
Pearl Oysters, holes are bored, into which pieces of 
iron are introduced ; these wounding and irritating 
the animal, cause it to deposit coat upon coat of 
pearly matter over the wounded part, and so the 
pearl is formed. Artificial pearls are made of 
hollow glass globules or little globes, covered on 
the inside with a liquid called pearl-essence, and 
filled up with white wax. Historians speak of an 
ancient traffic in native pearls carried on by this 
country; and in modern times, British pearls of 
considerable value have been discovered—one not 
many years since, by a gentleman who was eating 
oysters at Winchester, was valued at two hundred 
