PEARLS AND PEARL FISHERIES. 
419 
by answers under the next bead. In Tennessee it has been carried on at different 
points since 1880 and even 1878. 
The twenty-seventh inquiry, concerning the history, origin, and growth of the 
pearl- fishing, is answered in less than one-fourth of the papers; only 35 reply to 
it at all, and 5 of these are entirely indefinite. Several merely give the year when 
pearl-hunting began, with no incidents or data otherwise. A few allude to it as 
diminishing (Tennessee); or, when of late origin, increasing (Tennessee and Iowa). 
The circumstances connected with the origin of the pearl industry, as reported in a 
few of the papers, are of considerable interest, and may be put on record as follows: 
Arkansas reports that in 1889 two pearls were found in one shell. Inquiry showed 
that some twenty had been found from time to time previously, and the facts were 
then published in the newspapers. An Indiana- paper states that the first interest 
arose from accidentally finding a valuable pearl in opening a shell. The Maryland 
paper refers it to a newspaper article, about 1885. Texas reports a pearl discovered 
in opening a mussel for bait; the crops had failed that year, and pearl-hunting was 
widely taken up. Three Tennessee papers date the first excitement from what is 
evidently the same incident, related with slight variations, that in 1880 a fishing party 
came from Murfreesboro, one of whom was a jeweler. He found a pearl in opening a 
mussel for bait, and sent it to New York, where it was sold for a handsome price. 
Other responses from the same State give somewhat similar accounts, probably of the 
same circumstance. A Wisconsin paper states that in 1890 a Norwegian disclosed 
to a few persons the fact that he had been finding pearls for some years before. An 
interesting and isolated statement is made in a Tennessee paper that the matter 
was “brought into notice of the people here (Clinton, Tenn.) by button manufacturers 
having the shells gathered here,” and that it has been kept up by “hard times.” 
Question 28, as to the exhaustion of the mussel beds, its causes, and its rapidity, has 
called forth a very suggestive body of replies in 77 papers. The other papers make 
no response, or none that is at all definite. Ten papers report extermination of the 
shells, either actual or imminent, within a very few years past; 23 speak of rapid 
diminution in their numbers; 23 of decrease as noticed and in progress; 13 are uncer- 
tain, or report little or no change; 6 describe them as abundant or “inexhaustible,” 
and 5 refer to partial recovery or replenishment after reduction. In 56 out of 77 
papers, therefore, or approximately three-fourths, the process of exhaustion is recorded, 
at times already complete. Of these, 29 state the cause as pearl-hunting, mainly 
or wholly, and 10 papers refer to other agencies — 2 or 3 each to high or low water, 
deposits of sand or mud, ice, boats, hogs, and rats. Of the 7 answers from Wisconsin, 
where so many pearls of remarkable beauty were found in the early “ nineties,” 5 
report the shells as nearly or entirely exhausted, and 2 refer to rapid reduction, due 
to ignorant and careless persons taking the small and young shells as well as those 
more likely to contain pearls. A Tennessee paper alludes to the same reckless habit, 
and estimates the shells remaining as about 5 jier cent only of the number in former 
years. The destruction of the young shells is also mentioned in Indiana. In New 
York it is stated that a good pearl-fisher can “ clean out” a bed of 500 shells in a day; 
the Ohio paper speaks of hundreds being opened daily, and an Iowa writer states 
that the river will be exhausted in two years. Of those that speak of little change, 
several remark that not much is known or done in regard to pearls at their localities. 
Of the 4 that allude to recovery, one (Tennessee) says that the beds are cleared out 
about every two years and renewed in four; another (Tennessee) says that they 
