BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE AND THE PEARLING 



INDUSTRY. 



A paper rciiti before Section I) iZoiiloj^y) of the British Associiitioii for the Adwineement of Scieiii. 



iit Diiiuiee. on September 5th. \')\2. 



r.y II. lysti:r |.\mi:s()n. .m..\., u.sc, ph.I). 



In this paper I propose to review, very brieHy. the 

 more important attempts that have been made in 

 recent years to ap()ly the science of Marine Zoology 

 to the solution of the economic problems presented 

 by the pearl and mother-of-pearl fishing industries, 

 in different parts of the world. 

 The present excessively higii 

 price of pearls, and the fre- 

 quent substitution for them 

 of imitation articles, even 

 among classes who would 

 scorn to wear paste imitations 

 of mineral gems, and still 

 more the amazing price to p: ^ 



which the best qualities of R, \ 



mother-of-pearl shell have risen 

 (the best lots reached £550 per 

 ton at the recent London sales) 

 all emphasize the fact that, so "^ "'" "><"'">■ 

 far, we zoologists have not been iol ki. 



able to devise a method for Section of the shell of the 

 increasing production, or for 

 restoring depleted beds of pearl and mother-of-pearl 

 oysters. And yet it cannot be said that we have 

 been stinted for support, or that governments and 

 financiers have in all cases turned a deaf ear to our 

 proposals. .\ccordingly. while reviewing the work 

 that has been done, I propose to set forth a few 

 ideas, formed as a result of a study of these problems 

 extending over some thirteen years, as to the causes 

 of the small response Biology has tnade to the 

 demands of industry in this case. 



The chief localities in which biologists and business 

 men have concerned themselves with the question of 

 the application of biological knowledge and theor\- 

 to this industry are Japan, Mexico, the French 

 possessions in tlie Eastern Pacific. lUirma. the Red 

 Sea, Ceylon, and .\ustralia. 



JAFA.N. 



Japan has gone ahead of all the Western nations and 

 their colonies and possessions in being the first country 

 to establish a pearl-farming industry, based upon 

 a scientific knowledge of the biology and jjhysiology 

 of the mollusc, which has proved itself, after years 

 of trial, to be a firmly founded and highlv remunera- 

 tive business. The two names w hich are |)articularl\- 

 identified w ith the development of this industry are 

 those of the late Professor Mitsukuri and Mr. 

 K. Mikimoto, an ideal association of the learned 



Japanese Pearl Oyster 

 showing a " culture pearl " attached. 



scholar and the far-seeing business man. These two 

 f)ioneers met first at theN'ationallndustrial lixhibition 

 in Tokyo in 1890, where Mr. Mikimoto, a [learl 

 merchant, had an exhibit of pearl oysters (Murgar- 

 itifera martensii) from Japanese waters. It was 

 then that Professor .Mitsukuri 

 suggested to Mr. .Mikimoto the 

 possibilit}- of cultivating the 

 pt arl oysters and making them 

 produce pearls. 



When Mr. Mikimoto started 

 practical work on the Shima 

 fisheries, he shared the com.- 

 iiion fate of prophets and 

 pioneers, and was ridiculed by 

 his friends for " throw ing his 

 money into the sea." How- 

 ever, meeting and overcoming, 

 one after another, the difficul- 

 ties that are inseparable from 

 the early stages of such an 

 enterprise, turning for advice 

 to Professor .Mitsukuri and Dr. Kishinoue, retaining 

 unshaken his faith in the ultimate attainment of his 

 goal, he saw, within six years of his first meeting 

 with the Professor, his enterprise pass from the 

 experimental to the commercial scale, patented his 

 process, and, at the end of 1898. marketed his first 

 crop of ■' Culture-Pearls," as these products were 

 named. 



The enterprise is carried on in the Hay of Agu, in 

 the province of Shima, and the area leased for that 

 purpose, which amounted to about five hundred acres 

 in 1904, one thousand acres in 1905, is stated to 

 have been extended in 1911 to about twenty-two 

 nautical miles. In 1911 it supported fifty families, 

 whose headquarters is a village situated on a 

 previously uninhabited island. 



The operations consist in collecting the young 

 o\'sters on stones, which are laid down, just before 

 the ascertained spatting season, in areas where there 

 is an abundant spatfall ; in laying out the \oung 

 oysters so collected on more suitable grounds, and, 

 when they have attained a certain size, in operating 

 on them to induce them to produce pearl-like 

 excrescences or blisters. This is done b\- introduc- 

 ing between the body of the oyster and the shell a 

 bead of mother-of-pearl, which, in the course 

 of time (four years in Japan) becomes coated 

 over with nacre, giving a hemispherical or more 



