PEARLS AND PEARL FISHERIES. 391 
Prof. Joseph Jones, whose investigations throw much valuable light upon the 
contents of the ancient tumuli of Tennessee, says : 
I do not remember finding a genuine pearl in the many mounds which I have opened in the 
valleys of the Tennessee, the Cumberland, the Harpeth, and elsewhere. Many of the pearls described 
by the Spaniards were probably little else than polished beads cut out of large sea shells and from the 
thicker portions of fresh-water mussels, and prepared so as to resemble pearls. I have examined 
thousands, and all present a laminated structure, as if carved out of thick shells and sea conchs. 
Charles M. Wheatley was confident that there were “splendid pearls in southern 
Unios,” and instances the Unio blandingianus and the large old Unio buddianus ( buck - 
leyi) from Lakes George and Monroe in Florida as pearl bearing. He says: 
In Georgia the large, thick shells of the Chattahoochee, such as the Unio elliotti, would be most 
likely to contain fine ones, but there is no positive rule, as an injured shell of any species will doubtless 
afford some, irregular in most cases and of no value, but in some instances worth from $50 to $100. 
He also mentions that he has received from the Tennessee River, in Alabama, 
fine round pearls, both white and rose-colored. 
John G. Anthony writes: 
I never have collected in Florida and but little in Georgia, but what I can say about Ohio I 
presume will hold good in other States, that the Unios of various species furnish them tolerably 
abundantly there. They are not confined to any particular species, but are generally found in the 
thicker and more ponderous shells, though even the thinner shells often have small ones, especially 
such as are found in canals, ponds, and places which seem to be not so healthy for the animal on 
account of stagnant water. I recollect taking over twenty small ones out of the mantle of one speci- 
men of Unio fragilis — U. gracilis (Barnes) — which I fouDd in the Miami Canal; and almost every old 
shell there had more or fewer pearls in it. U. torsus (Raf.), U. orbiculatus (Hildreth), U. costatus (Raf.), 
and U. undulatus (Barnes) also produce them in Ohio. I have seen about half a pint of beautiful 
pearls, regularly formed and pea size, which were taken in one season and in one neighborhood ; so 
you may judge of their frequency, though, as I hinted before, it is probable that a kind of disease 
caused by impure water may govern their production somewhat. No doubt the Southern waters are 
given to making pearls, as well as Ohio streams. I have seen protuberances of the pearl character in 
southern shells, and have no doubt that one collecting them with the animal in them would find pearls. 
I particularly recollect Unio globulus (Say) and U. mortoni (Conrad), both Louisiana species, as having 
these protuberances in their nacreous matter. Georgia Unios are generally too thin to produce any 
excess of pearly matter and form pearls, but the Louisiana shells from Bayou Teche which I have seen 
have a remarkably pearly nacre, quite thick, reminding one very much of the marine shell Trigonia 
as to nacre. No doubt the bayous, which have in general no current at all, would make first-rate 
places for pearl breeding. 
Dr. Charles Rau 1 writes: 
I learned from Dr. Samuel G. Brinton, who was surgeon of the Army of the Cumberland during the 
civil war, that mussels of the Tennessee River were occasionally eaten “as a change” by the soldiers 
of that corps, and pronounced no bad article of diet. Shells of the Unio are sometimes found in 
Indian graves, where they had been deposited with the dead to serve as food during the journey to 
the land of spirits. 
Dr. Brinton saw on the Tennessee River and its tributaries numerous shell-heaps 
consisting almost exclusively of the JJ. virginianus (Lamarck). In every instance he 
found shell-heaps close to the water-courses on rich alluvial bottom lands. He says : 
The mollusks had evidently been opened by placing them on a fire. The Tennessee mussel is mar- 
garitiferous, and there is no doubt but that it was from this species that the early tribes obtained the 
hoards of pearls which the historian of DeSoto’s exploration estimated by the bushel, and which 
were so much prized as ornaments. 2 
Ancient Aboriginal Trade in North America, Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1872, p. 
38 of the author’s reprint. 
2 See Artificial Shell Deposits in the United States, in the Report of the Smithsonian Institution 
for 1866, p. 357. 
