PREFACE 



T is strange that although Pearls have 

 been highly valued in all ages as objects 

 of personal adornment, there should not 

 exist in the English language a single book entirely 

 devoted to their history. There are, it is true, many 

 notices of Pearls — more or less complete — in various 

 works on Precious Stones, and in others on the 

 Mollusca, or on the products of the sea in general. 

 In like manner there are numerous articles on the 

 subject, scattered throughout our periodical literature, 

 or enshrined in the proceedings of our learned 

 societies. But the fact remains that, so far as my 

 knowledge extends, there exists no work in which 

 the subject of Pearls is treated with fulness, much 

 less with any approach to exhaustion, and to which 

 the reader may confidently turn for information on 

 any point connected with these lovely productions 

 of the sea. 



In the earlier editions of my work on ** Precious 



