PEARLS AND PEARL FISHERIES. 399 
few mussels as an experiment, and obtained four good pearls; one of these he sold 
for $125, and the usual excitement arose through the entire neighboring region. 
In these ways the pearl-hunting mania was started, and spread from stream to 
stream. So complete was the absorption of the people in this pursuit, that the local 
papers at various points reported much difficulty and apprehension on the part of 
planters as to the prospect of getting in their cotton and other crops, all the farm 
hands and negroes being occupied in an eager search for the anticipated fortunes in 
pearls. By the middle of September the jewelers at St. Louis began to be flooded with 
letters and parcels containing Arkansas pearls. Everything in the shape of nacreous 
concretions was sent, and very often the whole lot was not worth the postage or 
expressage that it cost; and the extreme disappointment of the Anders, together with 
the clearing out of all the accessible shells from the “ worked” streams, led to the 
decline of the craze. 
There is no question, however, that large numbers of flue and valuable pearls 
were obtained, especially by the earlier explorers. A few notes are here given as to 
the sizes and values reported. A general agreement appears as to the large pearls 
being pink in color, and the smaller white. This probably indicates two species of 
shells. One deep pink pearl of 40 grains found in the mud by a woman was sold in 
St. Louis for $100, and as it was perfectly round and of fine luster its real value was 
much more. A farmer’s boy obtained a pink pearl of 31 grains on Black River, near 
Black Rock, Lawrence County, and sold it for $35. The local purchaser took it to 
St. Louis and there refused $75 for it, offered by a leading house, and left it for sale 
with another firm, who found a buyer for it at $500. This was doubtless excessive. 
Other instances have been mentioned above, and the St. Louis and Arkansas papers 
report numerous cases of pearls up to 40 grains, that were estimated to be worth 
several hundred dollars when perfect. By the end of August, Mr. Smith, of West 
Point, White County, had sold pearls to the value of $1,200, taken from Seven Mile 
Lake, somewhat south of the Walker and Murphy lakes, and Mr. Thomas, of Bald 
Knob, had realized $1,500 from pearls from the Little Red River. 
The region of the bayou lakes is reported to be unhealthy, at least for long-continued 
work in the water and mud, under conditions of exposure and fatigue such as pearl- 
hunting involves. Nevertheless, among thousands who camped out along the river 
banks for weeks during the autumn there does not seem to have been any frequent 
or serious illness. . 
Passing to a brief reference to other States, allusion has been already made to the 
pearl mania as extending into the Indian Territory. In the early part of September 
reports began to come from South McAlester, on the Kansas and Texas Railroad, of 
rich discoveries along the Kiamichi River, some distance to the southeast, and large 
numbers of people went thither from Arkansas, reporting the White River and its 
branches “cleaned out” and the shores covered with the opened and cast-away mus- 
sels. A little later quite a number of pearls, some reported as worth $100 apiece, 
were brought over the border to Paris, Texas, the county seat of Lamar County, from 
Boggy River, Indian Territory. Both this and the Kiamichi are northern affluents of 
the Red River, in about the central-southern part of the Choctaw Nation. 
Louisiana does not seem to have been affected as yet, but it is quite probable that 
a similar excitement will develop there soon. A lady owning a plantation on the 
Tensas River obtained some pearls there before the war; she then set a number of 
little negroes to search for them, and thus procured others. Some of these were fine 
enough to be sent to New York and mounted in handsome jewelry. 
