in natural history, a hard, white, shining body, usually roundish, found in a telescopically fish resembling an oyster.

Pearls, though esteemed of the number of gems by our jewellers, and highly valued, not only at this time but in all ages, proceed only from a distemper in the creature that produces them, analogous to the bzoars and other stony concretions in several animals of other kinds.

The fish in which these are usually produced is the East Indian pearl-oyster, as it is commonly called. Besides this shell, there are many others that are found to produce pearls; as the common oyster, the musle, and several others; the pearls of which are often very good; but those of the true Indian herberi, or pearl-oyster, are in general superior to all. The small or seed pearls, also called ounce pearls, from their being sold by the ounce and not by tale, are vastly the most numerous and common: but, as in diamonds, among the multitudes of small ones, there are smaller numbers and larger found, so in pearls there are larger and larger kinds; but as they increase in size, they are proportionably less frequent; and this is one reason of their great price. We have Scotch pearls frequently as big as a little hare, some as big as a large pea, and some few of the size of a horse-bean; but these are usually of a bad shape, and of little value in proportion to their weight. Philip II. of Spain had a pearl perfect in its shape and colour, and of the size of a pigeon's egg. The finest, and what is called the true shape of the pearl, is a perfect round; but if pearls of a considerable size are of the shape of a pear, as is not unfrequently the case, they are not less valued, as they serve for earrings and other ornaments. Their colour ought to be a pure white; and that not a dead and lifeless, but a clear and brilliant one: they must be perfectly free from any foulness, spot, or stain; and their surfaces must be naturally smooth and glossy; for they bring their natural polish with them, which art is not able to improve.

All pearls are formed of the matter of the shell, and consist of a number of coats spread with perfect regularity one over another, in the manner of the several coats of an onion, or like the several strata of the stones found in the bladders or stomachs of animals, only much thinner.

Manner of Fishing for Pearls in the East Indies.—There are two seasons for pearl-fishing: the first is in March and April, and the last in August and September; and the more rain there falls in the year, the more plentiful are these fisheries. At the beginning of the season there are sometimes 250 barks on the banks; the larger barks have two divers, and the smaller one. As soon as the barks arrive at the place where the fish lie, and have cast anchor, each diver binds a stone, six inches thick and a foot long, under his body; which serves him as a ballast, prevents his being driven away by the motion of the water, and enables him to walk more steadily under the waves. They also tie another very heavy stone to one foot, by which they are very speedily sent to the bottom of the sea; and as the oystiers are usually firmly fastened to the rocks, they arm their hands with leather mittens, to prevent their being wounded in pulling them violently off; but this task some perform with an iron rake. In the last place, each diver carries down with him a large net in the manner of a sack, tied to his neck by a long cord, the other end of which is fastened to the side of the bark. This net is to hold the oysters gathered from the rock, and the cord is to pull up the diver when his bag is full, or when he wants air.

In this equipage he sometimes precipitates himself sixty feet under water; and as he has no time to lose, he no sooner arrives at the bottom, than he begins to run from side to side, tearing up all the oysters he meets with, and cramming them into his budget.

At whatever depth the divers are, the light is so great, that they easily see whatever passes in the sea; and, to their great consternation, sometimes perceive monstrous fishes, from which all their addreses in muddying the water, &c., will not always save them, but they unhappily become their prey: and of all the dangers of the fishery, this is one of the greatest and most usual. The best divers will keep under water near half an hour, and the rest do not stay less than a quarter. During this time they hold their breath without the use of oils or any other liquors; only acquiring the habit by long practice. When they find themselves straitened, they pull the rope to which the bag is fastened, and hold fast by it with both hands: when those in the bark, taking the signal, heave them up into the air, and unload them of their fish; which is sometimes 500 oysters, and sometimes not above 50. Some of the divers need a moment's respite to recover breath; others jump in again instantly, continuing this violent exercise without intermission for several hours.

On the shore they unload their barks, and lay their oysters in an infinite number of little pits dug in the sand four or five feet square, raising heaps of sand over them to the height of a man; and in this condition they are left till the rain, wind, and sun, have obliged them to open, which soon kills them; upon this the flesh rots and dries, and the pearls, thus disengaged, fall into the pit on their taking out the shells.

After clearing the pits of the greater filth, they sift the sand several times in order to find the pearl; but, whatever care they take, they always lose a great many. After cleaning and drying the pearls, they are passed through a kind of sieve, according to their sizes; the smallest are then sold as seed-pearls, and the rest put up to auction, and sold to the highest bidder.

Though these ornaments are met with in all quarters of the globe, the most esteemed have always been those of Asia and the east coast of Africa. In the kingdom of Madura, which lies on the east of Malabar, there are many pearl fisheries. Tutukurin or Tutucorin is the principal, if not the only, city on the fishery coast. At the time the Portuguese were masters in these parts, the taking of oysters in the straits between the island of Ceylon and the continent, was styled, by way of excellence, the fishery, and very deservedly; for though some prefer the pearls taken near the island of Bahrain in the Persian gulf, and those likewise found on the coast of China at Hainan, yet it might be very easily proved, from the comparison of the annual amount of those fisheries within this period, that they were very seldom superior to this of which we are speaking. It was one of the wisest points in the Portuguese policy, that, though they were really in possession of this beneficial commerce, yet they chose to dissemble it, and took all imaginable precautions in order to make the natives believe that they were perfectly free, and that their intervention was not so much the effects of authority as of good-will; it was for this reason that they never pretended to erect any fort either at Tutucorin or at Calipatnam, two towns upon the continent, from whence most of the fishers and their barks came, and that they suffered the ancient customs to take place.

The season of the fishery was the latter end of April or beginning of May, sometimes sooner, sometimes later, according to the weather. The direction of it was left entirely to the sovereign of the country, called the naik; and the Portuguese, in quality of the protectors of the sea, sent two frigates to defend the fishing vessels from the Malabar and Maldivian pirates. The time which this pearl-fishing lasted was about a fortnight, of the beginning of which the naik gave public notice; and, the day being come, there repaired to the place assigned several thousands of people of all sexes and ages, and an indefinite number of fishing vessels, and divers from five or six hundred to a thousand or more. Upon a signal given the boats put to sea; and, having chosen their proper stations, the divers plunged and brought up the oysters in little baskets upon their heads; with which the boats being sufficiently laden, they were carried on shore, where the people who remained there for that purpose buried them in the sand, till, by the heat of the sun, the fish was corrupted and consumed, and the pearls easily taken out. The whole conduct of the first day's fishery belonged to the naik; and, after that deduction, what was caught every day was separated, and particularly distinguished, but went to the common profit. The whole number of the people employed at sea and on shore amounted frequently to 50,000 or 60,000 souls; and the pavilions and tents set up for their accommodation made a fine appearance at a distance. When the pearls were extracted, cleaned, and dried, they passed them through a kind of sieves, by which their sizes were distinguished. When all was over, the naik appointed a time and place for the public market; in consequence of which there was a kind of fair, that lasted commonly from the close of June till the beginning of September. The smallest, which are what we call seed-pearl, they fold by weight, and all the rest according to their respective sizes and beauty, from a few shillings up to ten or twenty pounds, and sometimes more a-piece; but there were few buyers, except the Portuguese merchants, who, bringing ready money, had got bargains, and thus all parties were pleased. The Portuguese assumed the protection of this fishery very soon after they settled in the Indies, and held it till the year 1658, when, in consequence of their losses in Ceylon and elsewhere, it fell into the hands of the Dutch, who have remained in possession of it ever since.

The Dutch have changed this method, as we are informed by a person very well acquainted with their affairs. The course into which they have put it is, in few words, this: the camp is sometimes held on the coast of Madura, upon the continent; sometimes on the island of Manar, which is in the hands of the Dutch, who, notwithstanding, follow the example of the Portuguese, and lay claim to no higher title than that of protectors of the fishery, in which quality their commissary is ever in the camp, as well as the naik or sovereign of the country, who is also the rajah of Tanjour. The oysters caught every day are put up in tuns or barrels, of which, when a certain number are full, they put them up to sale by way of auction; and the merchants bid according as they have an opinion of the oysters for the season; but the middle price is between 30 and 40 shillings sterling per cask. When a merchant has bought such a lot as this, he carries it to his quarters; and after a certain number of days he proceeds to opening the oysters, but always in the air, for the stench is so great as to be almost insupportable. They open them over tubs, into which they pour what comes out of the oyster, as also that muddy water that remains in the cask; next they draw it out into cullenders of several sizes, and at length perhaps they find four or five shillings worth of pearls, sometimes to the value of ten or twelve pounds; so that it is a perfect lottery, by which some few becoming rich, it betrays numbers into beggary. This pearl-fishery, we are told, brings the Dutch company an annual tribute of 20,000 l.

There are a variety of rivers great and small in Eastern Tartary considerable for pearl-fishery; but these pearls, though much esteemed by the Tartars, would be little valued by Europeans, on account of their defects in shape and colour. The Emperor Kang-hi had several chaplets or strings of these pearls, each containing 100, which were very large, and exactly matched. There are many rivulets in Livonia which produce pearls almost equal in size and clearness to the Oriental ones. There are several fisheries both on the eastern and western coasts of Africa; the most considerable of which lie round some small islands, over-against the kingdom of Sofala; but the people thus employed, instead of exposing the oysters to the warmth of the sun, which would induce them to open, lay them upon the embers; by which absurd method, those pearls which they catch contract a dull kind of redness, which robs them of their natural lustre as well as of their value. Pearl-fishing is performed by the women as well as the men; both being equally expert. In the sea of California also there are very rich pearl-fisheries. In Japan likewise there are found pearls of great price. Pearls are met with in all parts of the Red Sea in the Indian Ocean, on the low part of the coast of Arabia Felix named Baharen, adjoining to the Persian Gulf. They are likewise found on the low coast about Gunibroom to the eastward of the Persian Gulf; and many of the finest kind are met with on the coasts of Ceylon. They are most plentiful in the Baharen, between the coast of Arabia Felix and Ormus, whence they are transported to Aleppo, then sent to Leghorn, and then circulated through Europe.

It has been very commonly supposed, that pearls are found in a kind of oysters; and such the pearl fishers are called in part of the above account extracted from the Universal History; but Mr Bruce absolutely denies this, and informs us that there is no such fish as an oyster to be met with in the Red Sea in particular. They are indeed found in bivalve shells, of which there are three kinds commonly sought after by the pearl fishers. One of these is a kind of mussels now very rare; but whether more plentiful formerly than at present is not known; they are principally found in the north end of the Red Sea and on the Egyptian side; and Mr Bruce informs us, that the only place in which he ever met with them was about Coffair, and to the northward of it, where there was an ancient port called Myos Hermos, "which (says Mr Bruce) commentators have called the port of the Moufe, when they should have translated it the harbour of the Mule."

The second sort of shell is called Pinna. It is broad and semicircular at the top, decreasing gradually until it turns sharp at the lower end, where the hinge is. The outside is rough and figured, of a beautiful red colour, and sometimes three feet long, and extremely brittle; the inside lined with that beautiful substance called nacre, or mother-of-pearl.

The third kind of Pearl-shell is the only one which can be said to bear any resemblance to the oyster; though even this is evidently of a different genus.

In a general view of the writings of Linnaeus by Richard Pulteney, M.D., p. 42, it is said that Linnaeus made a remarkable discovery relating to the generation of pearls: in the river pearl-muscle (mya margaritifera) a shell fish found in several rivers of Great Britain and Ireland; that this fish will bear removal remarkably well; and that in some places they form reservoirs for the purpose of keeping it, and taking out the pearl, which in a certain period will be renewed again. The discovery was a method which Linnaeus found of putting these muscles into a state of producing pearls at his pleasure, though the final effect did not take place for several years; but that in five or six years after the operation, the pearl would have acquired the size of a vetch. Dr Pulteney regrets that we are unacquainted with the means by which Linnaeus accomplished this extraordinary operation, which was considered as important, since it is certain the author was rewarded with a munificent premium from the states of the kingdom on that account.

The colours of pearls are different according to the shells in which they are found. The first kind often produces those of a fine shape and excellent lustre, but seldom of that very fine colour which enhances their price. The second kind produces pearls having the reddish cast of the inner shell of the pinna, called mother of pearl; which seems to confirm the opinion of Reaumur, that the pearls are formed from the glutinous fluid which makes the first rudiments of the shell; and this kind of pearl is found to be more red as it is formed nearer the broad part of the shell, which is redder than the other end. Mr Bruce is of opinion, that the pearl found in this shell is the penin or pennin of Scripture; and that this name is derived from its redness. "On the contrary (says he), the word pinna has been idly imagined to be derived from pennia, a feather; as being broad and round at the top, and ending at a point, or like a quill below. The English translation of the Scripture, erroneous and inaccurate in many things more material, translates this pennin by rubies, without any foundation or authority but because they were both red, as are bricks or tiles, and many other things of base materials. The Greeks have translated it literally pina or pinna, and the shell they call pinnicus; and many places occur in Strabo, Theophrastus, Elian, and Ptolemy, which are mentioned as famous for this kind of pearl. I should imagine also, that by Solomon saying it is the most precious of all productions, he means that this species of pearl was the most valued or the best known in Judaea; for though we learn from Pliny that the excellency of pearls was their whiteness, yet we know that the pearls of a yellowish cast are those esteemed in India to this day, as the pennin or reddish pearl was in Judea in the days of Solomon. In Job, where all the variety of precious stones are mentioned, the translator is forced, as it were unwillingly, to render pennin pearls, as he ought indeed to have done in many other places where it occurs."

The third sort of shell produces pearls of extreme whiteness, which Bochart says are called darra or dora in Arabic; which seems to be a general term for all kinds of pearls in Scripture, whereas the pennin is one in particular. But though the character of this pearl be extreme whiteness, we are told by Pliny that there are shades or differences of it. The clearest, he says, are those of the Red Sea; but the pearls of India have the colour of the flakes or divisions of the lapis specularis. The most excellent are those like a solution Pearl of alum, limpid, milky-like, and even with a certain almost imperceptible cast of a fiery colour. Theophratus tells us, that these pearls are transparent, as the description of Pliny would lead us to imagine; but it is not so; and if they were, it is apprehended they would lose all their beauty and value, and approach too much to glass. The value of these commodities depends upon their size, regularity of form, whether round or not, weight, smoothness, colour, and the different shades of that colour. The pearl fishers say, that when the shell is smooth and perfect, they never expect to find any pearls, but always do so when it has begun to be deformed and distorted. Hence it would seem, that as the fish turned older, the vessels containing the juice for forming the shell, and keeping it in its vigour, grew weak and ruptured; and thence, from this juice accumulating in the fish, the pearl was formed, and the shell brought to decay, as supposed by Mr Reaumur. If this be the case, it ought to be known by the form of the shell whether the pearl is large or small; and thus the smaller ones being thrown back into the sea, a constant crop of large pearls might be obtained.

Pliny says that pearls are the most valuable and excellent of all precious stones; and from our Saviour's comparing the kingdom of heaven to a pearl, it would seem that they really were held in such high estimation at that time. Mr Bruce, however, is of opinion, that this extraordinary value was put only upon the very large kind; of which we are told, that Servilia, the mother of Marcus Brutus, presented one to Caesar of the value of 50,000l. of our money; and Cleopatra dissolved one worth 250,000l. in vinegar, which she drank at a supper with Mark Antony.

It is generally said that the pearl shells grow on rocks, which, together with the method of catching them, we have already mentioned. Some say they are taken with nets; from whence Mr Bruce contradicts the idea of their growing on rocks; for nobody, he says, would employ nets to gather fish from among rocks. He tells us, that all kinds of them are found in the deepest and stillest water, and softest bottom; the parts of most of them being too fine to bear the agitation of the sea among the rocks. It is observed that they produce the most beautiful pearls in those places of the sea where a quantity of fresh water falls. "Thus (says Mr Bruce), in the Red Sea, they are always most esteemed that were fished from Suakern southward, that is, in those parts corresponding to the country anciently called Berberia and Azagano; on the Arabian Coast, near the island Camaran, where there is abundance of fresh water; and in the island of Froosht. As it is a fish that delights in repose, I imagine it avoids this part of the Gulf, as lying open to the Indian Ocean, and agitated by variable winds."

Mr Bruce mentions a muscle found in the salt springs of the Nubian desert; in many of which he found those excrements which might be called pearls, but all of them ill formed, foul, and of a bad colour, though of the same consistence, and lodged in the same part of the body as those in the sea. "The muscle, too (says our author), is in every respect similar, I think larger. The outer skin or covering of it is of a vivid green. Upon removing this, which is the epidermis, what next appears is a beautiful pink, without glofs, and seemingly of a calcareous nature. Below this, the mother-of-pearl, which is undermold, is a white without lustre, partaking much of the blue and very little of the red; and this is all the difference I observed between it and the pearl-bearing muscle of the Red Sea."

"In Scotland, especially to the northward (a), in all rivers running from lakes, there are found muscles that have pearls of more than ordinary merit, though seldom of large size. They were formerly tolerably cheap, but lately the wearing of real pearls coming into fashion, those of Scotland have increased in price greatly beyond their value, and superior often to the price of oriental ones when bought in the east. The reason of this is a demand from London, where they are actually employed in work, and sold as oriental. But the excellency of all glass or paste manufactory, it is likely, will keep the price of this article, and the demand for it, within bounds, when every lady has it in her power to wear in her ears, for the price of five pence, a pearl as beautiful in colour, more elegant in form, lighter and easier to carry, and as much bigger as the pleases, than the famous ones of Cleopatra and Servilia. In Scotland, as well as in the east, the smooth and perfect shell rarely produces a pearl; the crooked and distorted shell seldom wants one.

The mother-of-pearl manufactory is brought to the greatest perfection at Jerusalem. The most beautiful shell of this kind is that of the peninim already mentioned; but it is too brittle to be employed in any large pieces of workmanship; whence that kind named dona is most usually employed; and great quantities of this are daily brought from the Red Sea to Jerusalem. Of these, all the fine works, the crucifixes, the wafer-boxes, and the beads, are made, which are sent to the Spanish dominions in the New World, and produce a return incomparably greater than the flake of the greatest manufactory in the Old.

Very little is known of the natural history of the pearl fish. Mr Bruce says, that, as far as he has observed, they are all stuck upright in the mud by an extremity; the muscle by one end, the pinna by the small sharp point, and the third by the hinge or square part which projects from the round. "In shallow and clear streams (says Mr Bruce), I have seen small furrows or tracks upon the sandy bottom, by which you could trace the muscle from its last station; and these not straight, but deviating into traverses and triangles, like the course of a ship in a contrary wind laid down upon a map, probably in pursuit of food. The general belief is, that the muscle is constantly stationary in a state of repose, and cannot transfer itself from place to place."

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(a) There has been in these parts (i.e. at Perth) a very great fishery of pearl got out of the fresh-water muscles. From the year 1761 to 1764, 10,000l. worth were sent to London, and sold from 10s. to 1l. 16s. per ounce. We were told that a pearl had been taken there that weighed 33 grats. But this fishery is at present exhausted, from the avarice of the undertakers; it once extended as far as Loch-Tay. to place. This is a vulgar prejudice, and one of those facts that are mistaken for want of sufficient pains or opportunity to make more critical observations. Others, finding the first opinion a false one, and that they are endowed with power of changing place like other animals, have, upon the same foundation, gone into the contrary extreme, so far as to attribute swiftness to them, a property surely inconsistent with their being fixed to rocks. Pliny and Solinus say that the mussels have leaders, and go in flocks; and that their leader is endowed with great cunning to protect himself and his flock from the fishers; and that, when he is taken, the others fall an easy prey. This, however, we may justly look upon to be a fable; some of the most accurate observers having discovered the motion of the mussel, which indeed is wonderful, and that they lie in beds, which is not at all so, have added the rest, to make their history complete." Our author informs us, that the mussels found in the salt springs of Nubia likewise travel far from home, and are sometimes surprised, by the ceasing of the rains, at a greater distance from their beds than they have strength and moisture to carry them. He affirms us, that none of the pearl-fish are eatable; and that they are the only fish he saw in the Red Sea that cannot be eaten.

Artificial Pearls. Attempts have been made to take out stains from pearls, and to render the foul opaque-coloured ones equal in lustre to the oriental. Abundance of processes are given for this purpose in books of secrets and travels; but they are very far from answering what is expected from them. Pearls may be cleaned indeed from any external foulnesses by washing and rubbing them with a little Venice soap and warm water, or with ground rice and salt, with starch and powder-blue, plaster of Paris, coral, white vitriol and tartar, tortoise-bone, pumice-stone, and other similar substances; but a stain that reaches deep into the substance of pearls is impossible to be taken out. Nor can a number of small pearls be united into a mass similar to an entire natural one, as some pretend.

There are, however, methods of making artificial pearls, in such manner as to be with difficulty distinguished from the best oriental. The ingredient used for this purpose was long kept a secret; but it is now discovered to be a fine silver-like substance found upon the under side of the scales of the bony or bleak fish. The scales, taken off in the usual manner, are washed and rubbed with fresh parcels of fair water, and the several liquors suffered to settle: the water being then poured off, the pearly matter remains at the bottom, of the confluence of oil, called by the French essence d'orient. A little of this is dropped into a hollow bead of bluish glass, and shaken about so as to line the internal surface; after which the cavity is filled up with wax, to give solidity and weight. Pearls made in this manner are distinguishable from the natural only by their having fewer blemishes.

Mother-of-Pearl, the shell, not of the pearl oyster, but of the mytilus margaretifera. See Mytilus.