River Pearls ; British and Foreign, 235 



Roman writers regarded the British Pearls as of 

 marine origin. 



Of all the rivers of Britain the most famous for 

 Pearls in ancient times was the Conway, or Conwy, 

 in North Wales. This river — the Toisobius of 

 Ptolemy — flows through some of the most picturesque 

 scenery of Carnarvonshire, and has been described 

 not inaptly as the "Welsh Rhine." It is in the 

 higher reaches of the river, above Trefriw, that the 

 best Pearls have been found. Mr. Robert Garner, 

 in a paper read before the British Association in 

 1856, says that "The true Pearl-mussel must be 

 searched for a good many miles up the river, and 

 the writer found it plentiful about a mile above 

 the ancient bridge of Llanrwst, near the domain 

 of Gvvydir, where the water is beautifully clear, 

 rapid and deep, and it may be had thence up 

 to Bettws-y-Coed." 



Of late years, however, fewer Pearls have been 

 found than formerly. Thomas Pennant, writing in 

 the latter part of the last century, speaks of as 

 many as sixteen Pearls having been taken in a 

 single shell, in the Conway; and he then proceeds 

 to explain the origin of these bodies, according 

 to the lights of his day. He regarded them as 

 nacreous calculi. " They are," says he, " the diseases 



