20 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



you can get those shells by the cartload." He proceeded to the Mississippi. 

 There shells were gathered, a few buttons finished and taken to Chicago. 

 A little perseverance found a market at a good profit, but reluctance at 

 handling the small output of one workman. A partner was enlisted, more 

 machines purchased, workmen personally instructed and the button industry 

 was established — which has made the city of Muscatine on the Mississippi. 



This was about 1890. The young man, Mr. J. F. Beopple, is now 

 go\'ernment shell expert at Fairport on the ^Mississippi, and the present size 

 of this fresh water pearl and button industry although difficult to state 

 exactly is estimated at about seven million dollars annually. The surround- 

 ings, the element of chance in pearl fishing, and the enormous growth and 

 kaleidoscopic changes in the button industry all lend romance to the work. 



The Mississippi at Fairport is about a mile wide, with large islands and 

 baylike sloughs, and although the winding channel is twenty feet deep, 

 there are flats which may appear when the river falls a few feet and consid- 

 erable areas of country of such level that it may be covered quickly by a 

 corresponding rise. The water is very muddy (with about one hundred 

 aufl ten parts hardness to the million) and has an average current of three 

 miles an hour increased after a heavy rain and often emphasized by the wind, 

 while the spring ice sweeps away any ordinary dock. Under these condi- 

 tions the methods of ol)taining the shells are three: Wading proves effective 

 in shoal water or when the river is low; raking from an anchored skifl^ is a 

 method much used in deeper water by skillful fishermen, although labori- 

 ous and impossible when the river is rough; while dredging, "drifting 

 with a brail," is probal)ly the method most generally in use. 



The "brail" or crow foot dredge is dragged astern and the so-called 

 "mule," a three or four foot square of boards with a wooden handle on top, 

 is dropped flatside to the current ofi^ the bow of the boat and held in this 

 position by ropes to give power and steadiness to the craft. When the tlown 

 river side of the bed is reached, l)oth dredge and mule are hauled aboard, 

 and the clams removed from the hooks of the dredge. Then the fisherman 

 "chugs" with his motor or rows to the up current side and the drift is 

 repeated hour after hour. 



The mollusks lie partly buried in the mud at the bottom of the ri\'er and 

 the hooks of the dredge brush between the shell's two open valves, which 

 snap shut in a grasp so tenacious that their edges are often broken in getting 

 out the hooks. An average of three or four hundred poimds daily is con- 

 sidered a good haul. The work may be carried on by a single fisherman near 

 his home, or by one or more families which camp on the river bank, shifting 

 location when the catch proves poor. 



After being brought to the shore the mollusks are steamed that the 

 valves may open and the meats may be more or less separated from them. 

 Then the shells are thrf)wn into a pile and the meats are put on the sorting- 



