VALUE OF PEARLS. 77 



introducing through it a minute grain of stony matter 

 into the body of the wounded animal. It is well for the 

 cause of humanity that no attempts have been made to 

 turn this singular nostrum to any practical account. 



Of the finest pearls, the weight of one carat or four 

 grains is worth eight shillings ; but this is the price 

 when the pearl weighs only one carat, for the price 

 increases in what arithmeticians call the duple pro- 

 portion. If, for example, the pearl weighs four carats, 

 then to find its price you multiply eight shillings by 

 four times four, or sixteen, which amounts to six 

 pounds eight shillings. Calculating their worth in 

 this geometrical progression, it increases at a wonderful 

 rate, so that a solid pearl, whose dimensions equalled the 

 gate of a fortified city, would be reckoned worth a price 

 which would, at the lowest computation, far more than 

 pay our national debt. In the vision seen by the be- 

 loved disciple, each of the gates or portals of the New 

 Jerusalem is said, most impressively, to have consisted 

 of one entire pearl. But our idea of the preciousness 

 of these gates is greatly increased when we remember 

 that the wall was upwards of eighty yards in thickness, 

 to which the frame of the gate must be adapted. 

 And if we add to this, that the city occupied a site 

 of two hundred and twenty-five thousand square miles 



