274 Pearls. 



the silky sheen, which gives them their great value 

 and chief beauty. 



"The conch abounds in the waters of the Bahamas, 

 and thousands of them are annually obtained and 

 destroyed for their shells, which form quite an 

 article of commerce, but in not one conch in a 

 thousand is a Pearl found. When this is taken into 

 account, and the other fact, that not more than one 

 in twenty of the Pearls found turns out to be perfect, 

 it will at once be seen that a good conch Pearl will 

 always be a rare and costly gem. 



** Most of the conch Pearls found in the Bahamas 

 are exported to London, where they are readily 

 sold. A few have been sent to New York, having 

 been purchased in Nassau by an agent of Messrs. 

 Tiffany & Co., the well-known jewellers. 



*' Like everything else that is valuable, the conch 

 Pearl has been imitated, and some of the imitations 

 have been sold as the genuine article. Many years 

 ago an ingenious American visited Nassau and con- 

 ceived the idea of making conch Pearl. He succeeded 

 admirably in cutting out of the pink portion of the 

 shell some very creditable imitations. To make 

 success doubly sure, he procured a number of the 

 live shell fish, carefully inserted his spurious Pearls 

 in the position in which the genuine Pearl is usually 



