PEARLS AND PEARL-DIVING 



carried on near the coast of the island of Bahrein in the 

 Persian Gulf, seem to vary very little from one year 

 to another, their average annual worth being reckoned at 

 about three hundred thousand pounds. 



Those of Western Australia, too, are proving both 

 regular and remunerative. The native Polynesian divers 

 who are employed often prefer to go down unweighted, 

 first smearing their bodies with grease. Among these 

 folk the women are unquestionably the better divers. 



Some allusion should be made here to a comparatively 

 new industry pearl-shell fishing, which is greatly on the 

 increase owing to the manufacture of artificial pearls and 

 to the steady demand for mother-of-pearl. Nearly all 

 round the coast of Australia as well as in the Dutch East 

 Indies, mussels, oysters, and kindred fish are continually 

 being dived or dredged for, solely for the sake of the 

 nacre which they contain. West Australia alone sends 

 away about a hundred thousand pounds' worth of such 

 shells every year just four times the value of that 

 colony's pearl-fisheries. At this work also, the Polynesian 

 divers are in great request. 



Apropos of artificial pearls, there is a considerable in- 

 dustry among the Mediterranean fishermen in netting 

 the argentine, a very brilliant, silver-coloured fish of the 

 salmon order. When caught it is opened, and its sound 

 or air-bladder removed and specially treated for the sake 

 of the coat of nacre with which that part of its anatomy 

 is covered. 



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