Benefits. 251 
o after, in the time of the caliphs, these were 
islands whose merchants were princes: but their bustle and 
glory have long since departed, and they are now thinly inha- 
bited by a race > of miserable fishermen. Nor are the rivers of 
Britain now fished, nor were they at any time of much value 
in this respect. Good pearls have indeed been occasionally 
found in our river muscle (U‘nio margaritifera), but too 
seldom to be worth the search. A notion prevails that Sir 
Richard Wynn of Gwydir, chamberlain to Catherine, Queen 
of Charles II., presented Her Majesty with one taken in the 
Conway, which is to this day honoured with a place i in the regal 
crown. In the last century several of great size were gotten 
in the rivers of the county of Tyrone and Donegal, in Ire- 
land. One that weighed 36 carats was pamed at 402, but 
being foul lost much of its worth. Other single pearls were 
sold for 42. 10s., and even for 10/. The last was sold a second 
time to Lady Glenlealy, who put it into a necklace, and 
refused 80/. for it from the Duchess of Ormond. In his tour 
in Scotland, in 1769, Mr. Pennant, from whom I have bor- 
rowed the above particulars, also mentions a considerable 
pearl fishery in the vicinity of Perth, from which 10,0002. 
worth was sent to London, from 1761 to 1799 ; but, by ‘beg in- 
discriminate destruction of the muscles, the ae y was soon 
exhausted. 
After the discovery of America the traffic in pearls passed, 
in a great measure, from the east to the shores of the western 
ore. The first Spaniards who landed in Terra Firma found 
the savages decked with pearl necklaces and bracelets; and 
among the civilised people of Mexico and Peru they saw 
pearls of a beautiful form as eagerly sought after as in Europe. 
The hint was taken; the stations of the oysters were sought 
out; and cities rose into splendour and affluence in their 
vicinity, all suppor ted by the profits on these sea-born gems. 
The first city which owed its rise to this cause was SNe 
Cadiz, in the little island of Cubagna; and the writers of that 
period discourse eloquently of the riches of the first planters, 
and the luxury they displayed: but now not a vestige of the 
city remains, and downs of shifting sand cover the desolate 
island. The same fate soon overtook the other cities; for 
from various causes, and particularly from the never ceasing 
and indiscriminate destruction of the Meleagrinz, the banks 
became exhausted, and towards the end of the sixteenth cen- 
tury this traffic in pearls had dwindled into insignificance. 
Of its value, when first established, the following extract will 
give you some notion :—‘* The guint, which the king’s officers 
drew from the produce of pearls, amounted to 15,000 ducats ; 
Ss 2 
or even long 
