V] PEARLS (37 



like true pearls. This industry of the Chinese has 

 been of considerable value and of some import- 

 ance in the districts where it was carried on. The 

 practice has, moreover, been rather general in the 

 East and it is applied now on a larger scale by the 

 Japanese. There is no reason w^hy the method should 

 not be successful in any mollusc, the shell of which 

 possesses a pearly nacreous layer. The pearls pro- 

 duced are only blisters and attached to the shell, 

 but in these days of cheap jewellery, a little care in 

 mounting hides the weak spots and blemishes. 



The great Swedish naturalist Linnaeus turned his 

 attention to the production of pearls by artificially 

 stimulating shellfish, and with a reference to his 

 work we shall conclude this chapter. 



In various works on pearl formation, references 

 occur to the " secret process " of Linnaeus, but what 

 this may have been was not known until quite re- 

 cently. That Linnaeus did produce pearls seemed 

 certain, and most Avriters on pearls simply made 

 guesses as to the modus operandi Herdman's 

 curiosity was aroused by the numerous references, 

 and by a search throiigh the manuscripts in the 

 Collection of the Linnean Society, London, he ar- 

 rived at the truth. The letters and other documents 

 are extremely interesting and begin with a letter 

 to Colonel Baron Funck (dated Feb. 1/61), in which 

 Linnaeus states "that he ^possessed the Art' of 



5—2 



