27 
pasted on the inside can be seen through the shell, convey- 
ing the appearance of being produced on the shell itself. 
Other manufacturers engaged in the business, as soon as 
its success became apparent, and many hundred thousands 
of pearl mussels are now annually used at Aldorf, where 
the business is chiefly carried on. The principal sources 
of supply are brooks in Bavaria and Bohemia that are 
owned by private persons. Why not Tennessee, Wiscon- 
sin and Texas “ 
Pearls are usually found either by farmers, who devote 
their spare time to this industry, and, if no result is ob- 
tained, suffer no loss, or by persons in country villages 
who are without regular occupations, but are ever seeking 
means for rapid increase of fortune. Many shells that do 
not contain pearls are destroyed. In order to obviate this 

FIG, to. METHOD OF OPENING MUSSELS IN SAXONY IN ORDER TO SEE “IF THEY CONTAIN 
PEARLS. 
wholesale destruction, it would be well to give the indus- 
tries a legal protection, making it punishable by fine to 
killa Unio, and requiring all pearl-fishers to use instru- 
ments like those that are employed in Saxony and Bavaria. 
(See illustration, ‘‘Gems and Precious Stones of North 
America,’? New York, 1893; Figs. 10 and 11, page 232.) 
In the former country a thin flat iron tool with a bent 
