PEARL FISHERIES. 359 



sometimes overlooked in the first operation. Months after the mollusc 

 is putrified, miserable Indians may be observed busying themselves 

 with the corrupt mass, in search of small pearls which may have been 

 overlooked by the workmen. 



The pearls adherent to the valve are more or less irregular in their 

 shape ; they are sold by weight. Those found in the body of the 

 animal, and isolated, are called virgin pearls, or paragons. They are 

 globular, ovoid, or pyriform, and are sold by the individual pearl. In 

 cleaning them, they are gathered together in a heap in a bag and 

 worked with powdered nacre, in order to render them perfectly pure 

 in colour and round in shape, and give them a polish ; finally, they are 

 passed through a series of copper sieves, in order to size them. These 

 sieves, to the number of twelve, are made so as to be inserted one 

 within the other, each being pierced with holes, which determine the 

 size of the pearl and the commercial number which is to distinguish it. 

 Thus, the sieve No. 20 is pierced with twenty holes, No. 50 with fifty 

 holes, and so on up to No. 1000, which is pierced with that number of 

 holes. The pearls which are retained in Nos. 20 to 80, said to be mill, 

 are pearls of the first order. Those which pass and are retained be- 

 tween Nos. 100 to 800 are vivadoe, or pearls of the second order ; and 

 those which pass through all the others and are retained in No. 1000 

 belong to the class tool, or seed pearls, and are of the third order. 



They are afterwards threaded ; the small and medium-sized pearls 

 on white or blue silk, arranged in rows, and tied with ribbon into a 

 top-knot of blue or red silk, in which condition they are exposed for 

 sale in rows, assorted according to their colours and quality. The 

 small or seed pearls are sold by measure or weight. 



In America the bivalve is opened with a knife, like the common 

 edible oyster, and the pearl is obtained by breaking up the mollusc 

 between the finger and thumb without waiting for its decomposition ; 

 nor is it boiled. This is a much longer and less certain process than 

 that pursued in the East; but the pearls are preserved in greater 

 freshness by the process for the nacre of the dead shells is less 

 brilliant than that of those which have been suddenly killed, and at 

 once separated from the soft parts. 



Some few pearls have become historical, from their size and beauty. 

 A pearl from Panama, in the form of a pear, and about the size of a 



