738 Pearls and Pearl Fisheries. [July, 
tics. The number of pearls which are valuable for jewelry and 
permanently retained for such uses is quite limited, the majority 
of the small and defective ones are used in a medical preparation 
highly prized in oriental countries, and of which I shall have 
more to say hereafter. 
The official reports of the importation of pearl and pearl shell 
into different countries, which are the only sources of information 
toward estimating the product, are meagre and doubtless quite 
inaccurate, I find that the average imports of pearls per annum, 
for ten years, into Great Britain, were $260,856.50; into France 
only $39,294.32, which is somewhat surprising. Of pearl shell 
or “mother-of-pearl,” the average annual value imported into 
Great Britain during sixteen years ending with 1870, was $2377 
500, nearly as much as the pearls, and in all probability at the 
present time, when the demand for art purposes has much in- 
creased, the importation value of the shells is greater than that of 
the pearls. 
A brief reference to the pearl fisheries of the Bombay coast of 
India and of the Persian gulf will not be devoid of interest. 
The finest pearls are obtained from the Persian gulf, but most 
of them pass into oriental countries. The fisheries are chiefly of 
the Arabian side of the gulf and are entirely in Arab hano 
The intrusion of foreigners into the business would produce 4 
popular tumult. There are four thousand or five thousand boats 
employed along the entire coast, averaging twenty-two men me 
boat. Being whiter than the divers of Ceylon, they blacken their 
bodies when diving that they may be less conspicuous to S$ 
The product of the fishery is estimated at $2,000,000 pet il 
of which half comes from the Bahrein islands, which were know? 
to the ancients as the locality of a rich pearl fishery, under the 
name of the Stoides. The great bulk of the best yellowish 
pearls are purchased by natives of Bombay. A large number © 
pearls are sent to Bagdad, where the white ones are pre se 
At the time when the Ceylon fishery was unproductive, ge 
largest proportion of pearl shell and pearls imported - : 
land were from this fishery, The shells are known as Egye . 
tians,” as they are shipped from Alexandria. _ P 
There is, or recently was, a pearl industry about ke 
the Bombay coast, for which the native contractors paid the k 
government a royalty of $20,000 per annum. The statement ; 
