242 Pearls. 



fetched. At this very day I can show some of our 

 own Scots Pearls as fine, more hard and transparent 

 than any Oriental. It is true that the Oriental can 

 be easier matched, because they are all of a yellow 

 water, yet foreigners covet Scots Pearls." 



The revenue from this industry shortly after- 

 wards began to decline, and the fishing was almost 

 abandoned until the year i860, when it was revived 

 by a German, who prosecuted the almost forgotten 

 trade for a while with such success that in 1865, 

 the value of the Pearls found was computed at 

 ;^ 1 2,000 for that year alone, — an assertion, however, 

 that requires confirmation. 



Mr. John Gibson, of the Edinburgh Museum of 

 Science and Art, writing in 1885, in the new 

 Ordnance Gazetteer, of Scotland, says that : — " Of 

 fresh-water bivalves the most important Scottish 

 species is the Pearl-mussel. It is found in most of 

 the mountain streams, but the Scottish Pearl-fishery 

 has been chiefly prosecuted in the rivers Forth, 

 Tay, Earn, and Doon." 



We believe that at the present time very little 

 is done in the way of fishing for Pearl-mussels in 

 any of the rivers of Scotland, and that the search 

 which is occasionally made by fishermen in the most 



