Pkahl Fisiiinci. 105 



is in g-etting them with nice form, nice colour, and large size, for 

 it must not be imagined that when you get a pearl in any stream 

 it has all these qualities. I should say not one in a hundred have 

 them ; brown, bad shaped, and worthless are the rule, the others 

 the exception. One jewellery traveller bought in one season in 

 the town of Ayr £70 worth of fine pearls, and if we consider that, 

 at least thirty jewellery firms visit Ayr during the season, and 

 that most are willing-, some anxious, to buy these g-ems ; also that 

 some of the largest were sold in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and even 

 London, I think I shall be within the mark in saying that four 

 years since £300 worth were disposed of in one season. 



The value of a pearl vaiies, however, upon the demand. A 

 fine pearl will always command a market, but circumstances 

 increase its market price materially. A diamond can easily be 

 secured to weight and colour, but a pearl for matching is often 

 difficult to obtain. I may illustrate this by what happens in 

 Hatton Gardens amongst dealers. At times a pearl may be in the 

 hands of a dealer, for which he asks £50 to-day. To-morrow it 

 is whisi^ered that a Bond Street firm wish a gem of certain size 

 and colour for matching, and the merchant at once raises 

 his price to £75 or even £100. A merchant dealing in stones 

 told me he had an open commission to buy 5-carat Scotch pearls 

 for a necklet which a jeweller was forming for a lady, and he had 

 the greatest difficulty in matching colour and size, so few were for 

 sale, and the matching can only take place by laying- them along- 

 side one another, the gradations of colour are so great. This 

 matching- is one of the causes of the fabulous prices of pearl neck- 

 laces and other articles of jewellery. On the other hand I have 

 known pearls sent to London for sale, and the parties got less for 

 them than was offered at their own door. 



Regarding the number of mussels in the water, complaints are 

 made of the rivers being cleaned out when the waters are excep- 

 tionally low. No supervision has ever been attempted, and 

 anyone is allowed to take that could find them, the small lieing 

 taken as well as the riper ones. 



Regarding the colour and value of Scotch pearls, some of 

 them are really lovely, as lovely as pearls of the Orient ; and in so 

 far as they are well coloured and shaped, are of equal value to 

 those of the ocean. But to be sought after they must be pure in 

 colour and faultless in shape. 



