584 Pearls and Pearl Fisheries. [June, 
shell, and having become so at one point, the size of the connec- 
tion rapidly increases, so that the pearl is soon permanently 
cemented to the spot. These are less valuable because less regu- 
lar in shape and iridescence than the free pearls. In any case the 
matter of which the pearl is composed is secreted at the expense 
of the shell, so that it is not strange that a shell which contains. 
good sized pearls is almost always recognizable, and that it is sel- 
dom that a mussel of perfectly normal and regular shape contains 
a pearl, The fishers claim that three characteristics of the out- 
side of the shell indicate the presence of pearls, namely: 1. 
Grooves or ridges from the beaks to the margin; 2. A kidney- 
shaped outline; 3. The asymmetry of the valves with regard to 
the median vertical plane of the animal. 
The regulation of the pearl fisheries in Saxony is very ancient. 
In 1621 Duke Johan Georg I, of Saxony, reserved this fishery for 
the Crown, and appointed Moritz Schmirler conservator. From 
that time to the present day (with a single exception during the 
seventeenth century) the masters of the royal pearl fisheries, 
twenty-one in all, have been direct descendants of Abraham 
Schmirler, who succeeded his brother Moritz in 1643. The family 
has changed their name in that time by one letter, and call them- 
selves Schmerler. The present incumbent is Moritz Schmerler, 
Senior} 
These fisheries were carefully inspected from a very early 
period, and general directions for their protection were drawn up 
by Dr. Thienemann and authorized June 15, 1827. The waters 
are inspected in spring to see if the mussel beds have been sof 
turbed by ice or débris during the freshets. The area over whi 
the fisheries extend is not searched every year, but is divided o 
313 tracts, of which each tract is considered as equal to one day ; 
work for three pearl-seekers ; and only twenty or thirty tracts are 
fished over in any one year, so that after fishing each tract has ten 
or fifteen years rest before it is fished over again. __ k 
The pearl seekers, who appear to be quite at home !n the wat h 
: on WN 
gather the mussels with a peculiarly formed piece of iron, a 
is sharpened at one end. With this they pry open the valves i 
1For a full account of these fisheries see Dr. J. G. Jahn’s “ Perllischer ay 
Voigtlande,” Uelnitz, 1854; and T. v. Hessling’s “ Perlmuscheln und ihre 5 i 
for those of Bavaria. The data here presented in regard to the German nr fishery % 
are due entirely to the report of Dr. HI. Nitsche on the fresh-water pe 
illustrated by the International Fishery Exhibition at Berlin in 1880. 
