WONDERS OF THE DEEP :*) 



historic times. It is an iadustr>- that can only he 

 prosecuted for a short season in the year. The 

 profits are a sramble: while the beautiful products, 

 useless in themselves, are only valuable owing to 

 the pride and vanity of the purchasers. Pearls. 

 one of the valuable products of the Bahamas, fetch 

 a good price, some being worth as much as eight 

 pounds sterling a grain. Many of the pearls are 

 found accidentally. A case is recorded of a man 

 having bought a conch, or large shell-fish, for his 

 morning's repast, for which he paid the equivalent 

 of a halfpenny, and on going home found em 

 bedded in the shell a magnificent pearl, which. 

 when sold, fetched sixty pounds. 



The following stor>- of an actual incident has 

 been related : In a settlement on one of the 

 Bahama islands, a native woman one day was 

 busily engaged in opening some conch shells and 

 removing their contents. While she was thus 

 occupied, a wild duck seized a shell-fish in its 

 beak and rapidly made off with it. The woman, 

 anxious to recover the conch, thereupon chased 

 the duck. A child, who happened to be standing 

 by. saw a pearl drop from the conch which the 

 duck was carr>-ing. but the woman, being so intent 

 on the chase, did not notice the pearl fall to the 

 ground. The child naturally picked the pearl up 

 and took it home to her mother. Guessing that 

 the pearl might be a valuable one, the woman 

 took it to Nassau, where she sold it for forty 

 pounds. Some while afterwords the news of this 



