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1883. | Pearls and Pearl Fisheries. : 739 
made in the Encyclopedia Britannica that the pearl product of 
this vicinity is obtained from shells thrown on the beach by the 
surf, which seems improbable. However the pearls are chiefly 
seed pearls, too small to be of use in jewelry but employed by 
the orientals in medicine. The powder of pearls is supposed to 
have the virtue of strengthening weak eyes, and to be efficacious 
in palpitations, hemorrhages, nervous and other affections. A 
similar notion, doubtless derived from the Arabian physicians was 
prevalent in Europe during the middle ages and may still be 
found in pharmaceutical works of the last century. The gilded 
youth of India, Persia and “ Araby the Blest” indulge in the 
luxurious extravagance of substituting powdered pearl for lime 
in the mixture of betel and areca nut, which they are accustomed 
to chew. 
The fisheries of the Sulu sea, Labuan and the Society islands 
are productive, but offer no special peculiarities except the em- 
ployment of women as divers in certain localities. As these 
ladies are accustomed to supply their husbands with crabs and 
other sea delicacies from an early period of their existence, by 
diving for them, the transition is easy to pearl diving. They are 
also said to be more steady and reliable than men, a virtue due 
doubtless to the rigid discipline enforced by their lords and 
Masters, 
` Magnificent pearls are obtained at the Gambier and Paumotu 
islands and the western and northern parts of the Australian 
coast have lately been coming into notice as the source of a val- 
uable and growing pearl and pearl shell supply. Ten years ago 
these fisheries hardly existed, and but few statistics are available 
in regard to them. 
The native divers of this great Indo-Pacific region are said to 
dispense with stones or weights. However, here as elsewhere, 
the limit in time spent below water seems to be about a minute 
and a quarter, and the limit of depth about twenty fathoms. 
Divers will seldom go so deep, however, and the average does 
not exceed ten fathoms. 
The pearl fisheries of the west coast of America are supplied 
from beds in Panama bay (now nearly extinct), and others in the 
Gulf of California, of Meleagrina californica Cpr. The shells are 
Smaller and thinner than those of the M. margaritifera, and have 
the technical name of “ Panama” or “ bullock-shell.” They are . 
VOL. xvi1.—no. vi, 50 
