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The Pearl Fisheries of Ceylon. 
BY U. S. CONSUL CHARLES K. MOSER* COLOMBO. 
The pearl fisheries of Ceylon are located 
in the Gulf of Mannar, near the extreme north¬ 
west corner of the island, and the banks most 
famous in times past lie close to the shore near 
a place called Marichchukkaddi. Since 1907 the 
banks have not been productive, though at the 
beginning of March, 1913, the Ceylon Govern¬ 
ment sent experts to examine the banks in the 
belief that they had again become the rendez¬ 
vous for pearl oysters in commercial quantities. 
This is a matter of extreme interest to pearl 
and gem merchants all over the world, though 
if the experts find only spat on the banks, it 
is probable that they will not be matured for 
fishing in less than four years hence. 
The Ceylon pearl oyster is not an oyster 
at all, but a mussel. It is of the same variety 
as the so-called pearl oysters found in the 
Persian Gulf and in Japanese waters, but quite 
unlike the "earl oysters of Australia and Burma. 
These are very large and have beautiful nacre, 
or mother-of-pearl, which is valuable, and for 
which they are extensively fished quite apart 
from the search for pearls; but the Ceylon 
variety has little nacre and no commercial value 
aside from its pearl-bearing propensities. 
Tradition says that King Solomon's pearls 
were from Ceylon and the Phenicians came to 
these coasts for them. The earliest mention of 
pearl fisheries in Ceylon occurs in the Rajavali 
chronicle, 306 B. C., where they are spoken of 
as being near Colombo and being destroyed by 
an inundation from the sea. Pliny also men¬ 
tions them, and the Tuticorin fisheries are 
spoken of in the Vishnu Purana. Albyrauni, 
who lived in the eleventh century, states that 
in his time the fisheries suddenly became ex¬ 
hausted, and this practically describes their 
present condition. 
There is no record of pearl fishing during 
the Portuguese occupation of Ceylon, but during 
the 140 years it was occupied by the Dutch, 
there appear to have been at least four im¬ 
portant fisheries; one in 1732, one in 1747 when 
they realized $107,000, one in 1748 of $193,000, 
and in 1749 when they realized $340,000. Alto¬ 
gether the Dutch probably took $1,000,000 worth 
of pearls from the fisheries. 
In recent times several companies have been 
organized and sent out to work the fisheries 
scientifically, but all have failed. In 1908 Prof. 
Herdman, the London expert, was sent out to 
investigate scientifically and report upon the fish¬ 
eries. He discovered oysters on a supposedly 
barren bank called the Kondatchi Paar, and esti¬ 
mated their number at 5,500,000. An attempt 
was made to fish this bank with a dredger, 
but it was a failure. Only 650,000 oysters were 
removed by the combined efforts of the dredger 
and native divers; the rest were lost, and the 
year following there were not enough oysters 
left for a fishery. 
Previously, in 1907, one Isaac Solomon had 
formed the Ceylon Co. of Pearl Fisheries. His 
idea was to radiograph the oysters collected and 
return to the water those that the radiograph 
showed to possess seed pearls capable of culti¬ 
vation. The oysters radiographed did not take 
kindly to the process, however, for they all died 
after being returned to the water. 
Under British administration the master 
attendant of the port of Colombo has been and 
is now the inspector of the pearl banks, while 
the Government agent of the Northern Province 
is superintendent. Until recent years a good 
deal of mystery was purposely allowed to en¬ 
shroud the pearl banks; no beacons or marks 
were erected on the shore, and the difficulties 
of locating the banks were increased wherever 
possible, probably to prevent poaching, but cer¬ 
tainly with the effect of adding a romantic in¬ 
terest in the public mind to the pearl fisheries. 
The potential paars or oyster beds are 
formed by an amalgam of coarse granite sand 
and old oyster shells cemented together with 
coral lime. On these paars there is little, if any, 
movement of sand, and were it not for the fish 
that prey on them, the oysters would thrive. 
Immediately off the paars the sand moves in 
gigantic loose waves, and oysters falling into 
this are immediately covered up and destroyed. 
Among the predatory fish the stinging ray, or 
skate, seems to be the most voracious enemy 
of the pearl oyster. 
The life of a pearl oyster is not more than 
eight years, and from about its third year it 
seems to be more productive both in number and 
size of pearls. Very few three-year-old oysters 
contain anything larger than the seed pearls, but 
if a bed could be fished just as the oysters were 
dying off from old age, the pearls obtained 
would be many and large. The oyster attains 
its largest circumference at its fourth year, but 
thickens afterward and increases in weight. 
True pearls, which are the results of a disease 
and not due to the admission of foreign matter 
into the shell, are formed in the intestines of 
the oyster, and when they reach a size to cause 
it great discomfort, the bivalve either dies or 
forces the pearl toward the opening between the 
valves where it is usually halted and retained, to 
increase in growth, by a transparent membrane. 
Very large pearls are rarely found on the Ceylon 
banks. A dead pearl loses its weight and be¬ 
comes dullish brown in color. 
When a fishery is established and the divers 
have arrived, they are divided into two parties 
and fish on alternate days. They are allowed 
one-third of their catch in payment, while the 
Government auctions the remainder on the beach 
the evening they are caught. The oysters are 
then placed in private kottus, or inclosures, by 
their purchasers, and allowed to rot for eight 
or ten days in a receptacle, generally a wood 
canoe, which is covered over to shade the 
oysters from the sun, but enables the flies to 
obtain free access and assist in the rotting. 
After this the mass is washed with clean water, 
the shell, stones and byssus picked out, and 
the residue spread on lengths of black calico to 
dry. During the drying process it is picked 
over again and again, and carefully scrutinized 
for the smallest pearl. 
The apparatus used for classifying the 
pearls is a series of brass colanders about the 
size of tobacco ash trays, which are called 
baskets. There are ten or twelve sizes of these 
baskets or sieves, with holes in them varying 
from somewhat larger than a pea to the size 
of a pinhead, and through these the pearls are 
sifted. The larger pearls are all found in the 
sifting, but multitudes of the tiniest seed pearls 
are left in the sand near the washing places, 
and for months after a fishery is over, and the 
camp abandoned to desolation, jungle men and 
women may be seen scouring the sand for these 
treasures. 
It is only possible to fish the Ceylon oyster 
from early in March to late in April, owing to 
the monsoons. All the facts collected during 
recent years show that a more than exotic fall 
of spat, which is the infant oyster in a floating 
state, is dependent on the presence of oysters 
on the Tuticorin side of the Gulf of Mannar, 
and a continuous current of sufficient power to 
carry the floating spat safely through the Paum- 
ben Pass to the favorable Marichchukkaddi 
Banks. 
Before a fishery is settled upon, the in¬ 
spector has, in the previous November, to lift 
a sample of about 20,000 oysters, extract the 
pearls by rotting, and have them valued. The 
valuation at this point is done by native Moor¬ 
men jewelers by secret handclasps under a 
cloth After sifting and weighing the gems 
through brass sieves and on delicate scales, the 
value is fixed upon in old Portuguese or Dutch 
coinage, according to tradition, and afterward 
reduced to the coin of the realm. This prac¬ 
tice is invariable, although the valuation so de¬ 
termined has very little relation to the real 
market value of the sample upon which it is 
established. 
The examination and inspection of the pearl 
banks is carried out by native divers under the 
superintendence of the inspector of pearl banks, 
who also checks and verifies the divers’ reports 
as to the nature of the bottom, number of 
oysters present, etc., and sometimes himself in¬ 
spects in the diving dress. The inspection boats, 
six-oared whalers, start from the windward side 
of the area to be inspected and work across the 
wind east and west, between the buoys, which 
are laid down north and south, east and west, 
in such a manner as to direct the boats on their 
east and west course and prevent their getting 
