MOTHER-OF-PEARL AM) PEARLS :i.V, 



colored glass pierced with a hole. Their price is 

 moderate. The pearls of the meleagrina are 

 irlolnilrs of tin 1 richest and finest mother-of-pearl. 

 It' they are unusually large, they attain the fabulous 

 price of the diamond, up to hundreds of thousands 

 and millions of francs. " 



"I don't know those pearls." 



"God keep you from ever knowing them, for in be- 

 coming interested in pearls one 

 sometimes loses common sense 

 and honor. It is well, though, 

 to know how they are pro- 

 duced. 



"P.eUveen the two parts of 

 the shell lives an animal like 

 the oyster. It is a mass of 

 slime in which you would .find 

 it difficult to recognize an ani- Oyster Shell 



mal. It digests, however, and breathes, and is sensi- 

 tive to pain, so sensitive that a grain of dust, a mere 

 nothing, renders existence painful to it. What does 

 the animal do when it feels itself tickled by some for- 

 -11 1 'stance? It begins to sweat mother-of-pearl 

 around the place that itches. This mother-of-pearl 

 piles up in a little smooth ball, and there you have 

 a p.-arl made by the sick, slimy animal. If it is of 

 any considerable size, it will cost a fine bag of 

 and the person who wears it around her neck 

 will lie very proud of it. 



11 P.nt before p-tinur to the neck, it must be iished 

 for. The li>liermen are in a boat. They descend 

 into the sea, One after another, with the aid of a rope 



