PEARLS AND PEARL FISHERIES. 
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were reported by jewelers in that city up to $300. Others were taken from the Wabash 
and Eel rivers, and it is stated that the inmates of the Soldiers’ Home at Marion, 
Grant County, made a regular occupation of pearl-hunting in the Mississnewa, an 
affluent of the Wabash, and that two of them had realized $400 for their season’s 
work. Some pearls were also obtained near Eushville, in Flatrock Creek, but no 
details were given. 
In Michigan a plan is on foot, organized by Grand Eapids capitalists, to engage a 
large number of laborers and operate systematically along the St. Joseph Eiver next 
year. Many smaller schemes are also being planned. Multitudes of shells were 
gathered during the past season, and many good pearls reported from that river in the 
southeastern corner of the State. 
In Wisconsin the only important pearl discovery was reported from Janesville 
early in August, when two farmers found two pearls in Eock Eiver, which they sold 
for $200 each. One of them was subsequently, it is said, sold in Chicago at a great 
advance. Beloit and Marinette are also mentioned as places where some interest has 
been developed. 
In Iowa two men who were exploring along the Mississippi for a pearl-button 
establishment, to determine the quality and abundance of available shells, obtained 
a few pearls in a small inlet below Bisping’s Springs. Only one was valuable. An 
interesting circumstance is that the pearl-yielding shells were found at the same spot? 
while hosts of others which they had opened and examined in the course of their 
business had no pearls whatever. 
Georgia has developed some interest, principally in the vicinity of Eome, at the 
junction of the Etowah and Oostanaula. This is believed to be the site of the Indian 
town of Ichiaha, where DeSoto stayed for a time during his memorable expedition of 
1540-41, and found the natives in possession of so many pearls. The Arkansas 
reports stirred up a local excitement in this region, when the river became low and 
clear in the autumn, and multitudes went searching the waterways. Ex-sheriff 
Mathias, of Eome, is reported as having some 50 pearls, brilliant but irregular. A 
few miles above, on the Oostanaula, Mr. Bennett, a farmer, on reading of the Arkansas 
furore, made a trial on John’s Creek, a tributary of the Oostanaula; and from a 
basketful of Unios he obtained several fine pearls, up to the size of peas, for which 
he received $180 from a Baltimore jeweler to whom he sent them. Others followed, 
and many fine specimens were procured. 
Florida has not yet been u worked,” but it may prove a productive pearl region ere 
long. The reports of DeSoto’s expedition make special reference to the size and 
beauty of the pearls at a point where he crossed the Oclocknee Eiver, some 30 miles 
above its mouth. This place corresponds to what is now Langston’s Ferry, Wakulla 
County, and there is little doubt that pearls may be found there now in the Oclocknee 
and its affluent, the Sopchoppy Eiver. The banks are described as packed full of 
shells. Mr. Houstoun, a resident near that point, possesses some pearls, and speci- 
mens of them sent to the Philadelphia Exposition were much admired. Many pearls 
are reported as found worth from $30 to $60. The average size is about an eighth 
of an inch, which, when perfect, bring from $10 to $15. The two largest and finest 
weigh, respectively, 68 and 58 grains, and were sold for $850 and $600. 
Connecticut has also had its pearl fever, again as a result of the press accounts 
from the Southwest. In October Mr. C. S. Carwell, an old and well-known hunter, 
F. C. B. 1897—26 
