342 DR. H. LYSTER JAMESON ON 



rocks and stones, clear of all mud." Mr. Pestonji says that the 

 bottom of the sea around the reefs is muddy, and that it is 

 believed that the heavy rains and seas wash a, way the mud from the 

 Oyster-beds, and so make it easier to see and collect the oysters. 

 " At high tide there is usually about ten to twelve feet of water 

 over the Oysters, The oyster-beds are never dry, even at low 

 water, there always being an inch or two of water draining off " "*. 



The iishery is carried on by wading, at low tide. " During the 

 Monsoon season four or five hundred men are sent out to a certain 

 reef, where they tramp about and pick up the oysters as they come 

 upon them. They stay three or four days on each reef, and wlieu 

 one reef has been searched they move on to another. Each man 

 is rewarded according to the number and nature of the pea.ils found 

 in the oysters he brings in." 



The oysters are not " rotted," as in the case of the Ceylon pearl- 

 fisheries, but are opened one by one, and the pearls removed '' by 

 scraping the flesh gently with a blade of a knife." 



The number of oystei-s fished annually is about 150,000, on 

 an average. The value is uncertain. The number of pearls 

 extracted from these oysters comes to about 20,000 and over. 

 They vary in size fiom seed-pearls to those weighing 20 grains and 

 over. The lustre and colour are of first-class order, bvit the shape 

 in over 60 per cent, of the peai'ls is poor. 



Mr. Pestonji estimates that if care is taken to pick up oysters 

 which are about four years old, about 10 to 15 per cent, of them 

 contain pearls. He says, in a letter dated November 14th, 1911 : 

 "Lately we opened oysters three times. The first time we opened 

 643 oysters and got 452 pearls. The second time we opened 

 770 oysters, and got 537 pearls. The third time we opened 845 

 oysters, and got only 379 pearls." Mr. Pestonji inckides the 

 minute " dust " pearls as well as pearls of different sizes and shapes 

 in this statement, and explains tha,t there are often as many as 

 fifteen or more minute pearls in a single oyster. 



Eighteen pearls from this collection have so far been decalcified 

 and examined, and thirteen of these have been sectioned. Some 

 of these were sectioned in situ in the tissues, others were pearls 

 which had fallen out of the tissues in the preserving process. 

 They differed in no recognisable mici'oscopic features from the 

 pearls produced by the same species in Ceylon and the Persian 

 Gulf. Thirteen of these pearls, six of which were from one 

 specimen and three from another, were of the same character as 

 those described from Dr. Kelaart's material in the British Museimi, 

 that is to say, they had a small central cavity, svuTOVinded by 

 ordinary nacre. The remainder had more or less obvious 

 pseudo-nuclei, composed of columnar or alveolar substance, in soixie 

 cases interstratified with nacre. Two of these (Preparations 

 N. YIII. andlST.IX.) had nacre inside the columnar substance, with 



* Spvinp: tides rise 18 ft., and neaps 14 ft., at Rojhi, an island near the town of 

 Nawana?,iu-, accordinp- to the Adniiraltj' Sailing Directions, "West coast of 

 Hindustan Pilot " (1898 edition). 



