56 



BRITISH PEARLS. 



notion prevails that Sir Richard Wynn, of Gwydir, chamber- 

 lain to Catherine, Queen of Charles II., presented her 

 Majesty with a pearl taken in the Conway, which is to this 

 day honoured with a place in the regal crown.* Sir Robert 

 Redding, in 1693, sent to the Royal Society a pearl-mussel 

 from Ireland which yielded a pearl that was sold for twelve 

 pounds, a large sum, when you consider that this was nearly 

 one hundred and fifty years ago. The same Sir Robert, 

 when in Ireland, " saw one pearl bought for fifty shillings, 

 that weighed thirty-six carats, and was valued at 40/., 

 and had it been as clear as some others produced there- 

 with, would certainly have been very valuable. Everybody," 

 he continues, " abounds with stories of the good penny- 

 worths of the country, but I will add but one more : a mil- 

 ler took out a pearl, which he sold for 4/. 10s. to a man 

 that sold it for 10/., who sold it to the late Lady Glenanly 

 for 30/., with whom I saw it in a necklace ; she refused 

 80/. for it from the late Duchess of Ormond."-f- 



The British pearls, as you will have noticed, are generated 

 in the fresh-water mussel (Unio margaritiferus, Fig. 8, b), 

 which lives in cold rapid rivers. In Wales, the Conway has 

 been long celebrated for them, — 



" Whose pretious orient pearls that hreedeth in her sand, 

 Above the other floods of Britain doth her grace ;" 



and the fishery still exists ; though, according to Dr. Mac- 

 culloch, it is the source of anything but good,— "a lottery 

 which produces universal poverty among the people who 

 pursue it." A recent account represents the case more 

 favourably, and informs us, that there are a number of per- 

 sons who live by this alone, and where there is a small family 

 to gather the shells and pick out the fish, it is preferable to 

 any other daily labour. J The pearls are disposed of to an 

 overseer, who pays for them by the ounce, the price varying 

 from 1*. 6d. to 4s. What is done with them seems to be in- 

 volved in mystery : they are, with few exceptions, useless as 

 ornaments, and the exceptions seem scarcely sufficient to 

 support any profitable speculation ; so that I give no credit 



* Pennant, Brit. Zool., iv. 163. 



t Phil. Trans, xvii. 660. In Sir W. Scott's description of the bridal 

 attire of the Maid of Lorn, one of her attendants is thus introduced :— 



" While on the ankle's slender round 

 Those strings of pearl fair Bertha wound, 

 That, bleach'd Lochryari's depths within, 

 Seem'd dusky still on Edith's skin." 



Lord tif the Isles, canto i. 5. 

 % Mag. Nat. Hist. iii. 132. 



