PEARL FISHING. 105 
is in getting them with nice form, nice colour, and large size, for 
it must not be imagined that when you get a pearl in any stream 
it has all these qualities. I should say not one in a hundred have 
them ; brown, bad shaped, and worthless are the rule, the others 
the exception. One jewellery traveller bought in one season in 
the town of Ayr £70 worth of fine pearls, and if we consider that, 
at least thirty jewellery firms visit Ayr during the season, and 
that most are willing, some anxious, to buy these gems ; also that 
some of the largest were sold in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and even 
London, I think I shall be within the mark in saying that four 
years since £300 worth were disposed of in one season. 
The value of a pearl varies, however, upon the demand. A 
fine pearl will always command a market, but circumstances 
increase its market price materially. A diamond can easily be 
secured to weight and colour, but a pearl for matching is often 
difficult to obtain. I may illustrate this by what happens in 
Hatton Gardens amongst dealers. At times a pearl may be in the 
hands of a dealer, for which he asks £50 to-day. To-morrow it 
is whispered that a Bond Street firm wish a gem of certain size 
and colour for matching, and the merchant at once raises 
his price to £75 or even £100. A merchant dealing in stones 
told me he had an open commission to buy 5-carat Scotch pearls 
for a necklet which a jeweller was forming for a lady, and he had 
the greatest difficulty in matching colour and size, so few were for 
sale, and the matching can only take place by laying them along- 
side one another, the gradations of colour are so great. This 
matching is one of the causes of the fabulous prices of pearl neck- 
laces and other articles of jewellery. On the other hand I have 
known pearls sent to London for sale, and the parties got less for 
them than was offered at their own door. 
Regarding the number of mussels in the water, complaints are 
made of the rivers being cleaned out when the waters are excep- 
tionally low. No supervision has ever been attempted, and 
anyone is allowed to take that could find them, the small being 
taken as well as the riper ones. 
Regarding the colour and value of Scotch pearls, some of 
them are really lovely, as lovely as pearls of the Orient ; and in go 
far as they are well coloured and shaped, are of equal value to 
those of the ocean. But to be sought after they must be pure in 
colour and faultless in shape. 
