398 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and then subjecting the surface to the action of hydrofluoric 

 acid. This was the invention of Janin, Jacquin, or Jalquin, a 

 rosary-maker in Paris, in 1680. A thousand fish yield less than 

 an ounce of the " pearl essence," which is correspondingly costly. 

 The cheaper so-called Roman pearls have a lustrous coating on 

 the outside, but bear little resemblance to real pearls, or even to 

 the artificial pearls just described. 



Considering the vast values in gem pearls obtained from the 

 Eastern fisheries, it is surprising to find that the plain, unroman- 

 tic. mother-of-pearl secured is of even greater worth. Previous 

 to the discovery of the extensive Australian fishing grounds, in 

 1865, the supply of mother-of-pearl was diminishing, while tt^e 

 demand was increasing. The large-shelled species already men- 

 tioned are there found in fine quality. The shells are the size of 

 large soup-plates, weigh a pound each, and are worth about a 

 dollar a pair. An expert diver, in diving dress, will collect three 

 or four hundred pairs in a day. About a hundred gem pearls are 

 found in every ton of these shells. 



Beautiful art work in carved and inlaid mother-of-pearl has 

 long been produced in China and Japan. Some idea of the ex- 

 tent of its European use in the arts and manufactures may be had 

 from the fact that eight thousand people are engaged in working 

 mother-of-pearl in Austria, and half that number in France, 

 while the value of the annual import into England is nearly one 

 and a half millions. In the Philippine Islands windows are made 

 of mother-of-pearl; and James Anthony Froude, in his volume 

 of voyaging in Oceana, describes frightful Maori idols with slips 

 of mother-of-pearl glittering in their eye-sockets; while in Cash- 

 mere it is the custom to inlay the inscriptions in tombstones with 

 the same exquisite substance. To cap the climax of curious uses 

 of the lustrous nacre, it is said that large quantities v of seed pearls 

 are imported into China to be calcined into medicines for the Ce- 

 lestials. 



According to M. Brau de Saint-Pol Lias, the Society of Arts and Sci- 

 ences of Batavia has given special attention to the reconstitution of the 

 most ancient of the Oceanican languages, the Kawi, which is probably the 

 mother language of all the region. The Kawi inscriptions, in which Wil- 

 liam von Humboldt was much interested, are found everywhere in the 

 islands ; on the rough cliffs, on cut stones, buildings, statues, plaques of 

 gold and silver, coins and medals ; and many grand ruins of its people are 

 found in Borneo, Sumatra, Bali, and especially Java. The language is 

 still preserved in the legendary songs of the Javanese, as they are sung in 

 their theaters, although it is not understood. Through the studies of the 

 Batavian scholars the alphabet has recently been deciphered, and the 

 meaning of two hundred words out of five hundred determined, while one 

 hundred words are still in doubt, and two hundred are wholly undefined. 



