PEARL FISHING. 107 
good cook would be necessary. The eel, however, seems to have 
quite a different idea, and the dragging of an open shell through 
the water soon puts him in motion and on the outlook. 
The using of the pearl mussel in the forming of pearls by the 
Naturalist Linnzeus has just come under my notice, but it seems, 
although taken up by the Swedish Government, to have turned out 
a failure. But the scientist is seldom well adapted for the practical 
work, and I am still under the belief that the matter is of a practi- 
cal kind. 
The aquarium, or a fountain like that used by a late member 
of this Society, is the most likely method of learning the life history 
of the mussel and its offspring, the pearl, and I trust that some one 
of our many members will use this means to elucidate some of the 
problems in its life history. 
A paper upon pearls would not be complete unless Cleopatra 
and her famous pearl were introduced. The famous banquet, the 
dissolving a pearl worth £80,000 in vinegar, and the drinking of 
this costly mixture, has always been introduced to point a moral. 
I have tried a good many experiments upon pearls to test the effect 
of vinegar upon them ; have steeped for hours small oriental pearls 
in strong vinegar, then in strong acetic acid, then nitric acid, with 
very little result. I handed a pearl about a grain and half in 
weight to Mr Neilson, of Dumfries Academy, with the same result as 
regards vinegar. Spirits of salt were then tried for two hours, 
and the pearl was reduced a very little. Something must be 
wrong in the telling of this charming bad story about Cleopatra’s 
pearl. From the value, I should say it was at least 200 grains in 
weight, and you can compute for yourselves, if it took five hours 
to reduce a pearl one grain in weight in spirits of salt, how long 
would it take to reduce one of 200 grains or more in weight. If 
dissolved it certainly was not by vinegar. If it was drunk at the 
banquet, the probabilities are that it was ground down or crushed 
and then swallowed, a costly but nauseous draught. 
