41 8 The Commercial Products of the Sea. 



No later official returns have been published. 



The average annual imports of pearls into France are 

 thus given in the French official tables : — 



Grammes. Value in francs. 



Ten years ending 1856 ... 82,100 . ... 1,265,951 



„ „ 1866 ... 155,300 ... 2,620,863 



„ „ 1876 ... 118,078 ... 2,007,333 



The next large Eastern fishery is that in the Persian 

 Gulf. Colonel Felly, in an official report to the Bombay 

 Government in 1863, stated that the pearl oyster beds ex- 

 tend at intervals almost along the entire length of the 

 Arabian coast of the Gulf. No person other than the coast 

 Arabs is considered to have any right of diving ; and it is 

 probable that any intrusion on the part of foreigners would 

 create a general ferment along the coast line. The richest 

 banks are those of the islands of Bahrein. They are found 

 at all depths, from a little below high-water mark down to 

 17 and 18 fathoms. It is probable that there are beds at a 

 much greater depth. It is held as a rule here that the lustre 

 of the pearl depends on the depth of the water — the greater 

 the depth, the finer the lustre. There does not seem to be 

 any known law governing the more or less sphericity of 

 the pearl. 



The diving period is from the warm spring in April to 

 the end of the hot summer months of August and Sep- 

 tember. There are generally from 4000 to 5000 fishing 



