Group of charred, cut fresh-water pearls; more than 100,000 found in mounds
Finger-shaped piece of lignite inlaid with fresh-water pearl
Copper bird, 15⅞ inches long with eye of fresh-water pearl
We are informed by Mr. E. P. Dieseldorf, of Coban, Republic of Guatemala, that he has never observed pearls in the pre-Columbian graves in Guatemala; he had, however, frequently found marine shells, whole, and elaborated in connection with jadeite beads.
In a personal communication, Mr. Thomas Gann, of Yucatan, states that, in excavating a mound at San Antonio, near the mouth of the Rio Hondo, in Yucatan, he uncovered a small stone cyst or chamber, containing two perforated, pear-like ornaments of considerable size, together with portions of a human skeleton, painted pottery, etc. He also states that ornaments such as beads, gorgets, and ear-pendants, made from the pearly shell of both the oyster and the conch, are of common occurrence in many sepulchral mounds in British Honduras and in Yucatan, and he notes the fact that pink conch pearls are found in considerable numbers at the present day along the coast of British Honduras. There is no especial fishing for pearls, and they are found only incidentally in conchs which have been gathered for food. These pearls are sold by fishermen in Balize at prices varying from two or three dollars to twenty or thirty apiece. In size they range from that of a large pin’s head to that of a small pea.
Mrs. Marie Robinson Wright informs us that she has never found pearls in the Bolivian graves, although they are quite plentiful in Bolivia to-day, and hundreds of them are offered in the markets. The pretty girls wear them as earrings and in their topos.
There is no doubt that pearls existed long before the advent of man, both in the fresh-water and in the marine form. This is more clearly evidenced by Sir Charles Lyell, who calls attention to the fact that the fresh-water mussel (Unio littoralis Gray), formerly found in abundance at Grays Thurrock, Essex, no longer exists in England, but occurs in France, showing that not only had this mollusk been unseen by any Englishman, but that the form had become extinct in an entire country. Thus, both the pearl shell of the ocean and the pearl-mussel of the river, for many centuries produced pearls, which passed away with the shell itself.
A great number of fossil Unios were collected by Barnum Brown from the Laramie clays, 130 miles northwest of Miles City, Montana. The shells were found in a bed situated about 180 feet above the Fort Pierre shales and, therefore, well above the recognized cretaceous strata. These shells were in fairly good condition and retained the nacreous coloring to a considerable extent. As some of them resemble the modern species, it seems that the same designations might be applied to them.
Prof. R. P. Whitfield, one of our greatest palæontologists, who has carefully examined these fossil shells, suggests that they are probably the progenitors of the species of Unios and fresh-water mussels that now inhabit the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers and their tributaries, and he proposes the following names for some of them, indicating at the same time the living species with which he compares them: Unio biæsopoides, Unio æsopoides and Unio æsopiformis, all resembling U. æsopus Green; Unio letsoni = U. cornutus Barnes; Unio cylindricoides = U. cylindricus Say; Unio gibbosoides = U. gibbosus Barnes; Unio pyramidatoides = U. pyramidatus Lea; Unio retusoides = U. retusus Lam.; Unio verucosiformis = U. verrucosus Barnes.
Although it is almost certain that these ancient Unios were pearl-bearing, Professor Whitfield informs us that, in a period of fifty years of palæontological research, he has never found a fossil pearl.
We are informed by Sophus Müller, Director of the Royal Danish Museum of Antiquities at Copenhagen, that no Danish ornaments containing pearls have been found dating from an earlier period than 1000 B.C.; he also states that no fresh-water pearls have ever been discovered in the Danish graves.
Dr. H. Ulmann, director of the great Swiss Landesmuseum at Zurich, and Dr. Otto Leiner, director of the Rosengarten Museum at Constance, personally communicated to us that no pearls exist in either of the collections of these great museums, nor to their knowledge have any been discovered in the lake-dwellings or the prehistoric graves of either Switzerland or Baden. This may either be due to conditions favorable to the dissolution of the pearl by the action of the ooze on the lake bottom, or else to the entire absence of knowledge of them on the part of a people who were familiar with many materials, since the museum collections even show jade implements of a number of types.
Dr. Leiner, whose father was curator of the Rosengarten Museum before him, informs us that at Bodman on Lake Constance there were found a large number of bored cylinders, from one fourth of an inch to one inch in length, made out of limestone. They were used for necklaces, somewhat in the style of our Indian wampum, and were either worn alone or in connection with bored cylinders made of the tuff-rock and also of encrinite stems.
Dr. Leiner also asserts that he has never seen Unio margaritifera in Lake Constance; nor was there any evidence of shells, broken or otherwise, observed by him in the excavations in the lake-dwellings.
The curator of the Rhodesia Museum, Bulawayo, South Africa, states that in Rhodesia, in the vicinity of Bulawayo, beads made out of the shell of the common Unio or fresh-water mussel (Unio verreauxi) have been observed in the graves, although pearls themselves have never been found with them in any burials.
ADDENDA
One of the authors used every endeavor in 1893 and 1894 to have a bill passed by Congress for the regulation of pearl-fishing in the United States. These efforts were frustrated by the influence of the local pearl fishers. An attempt has now been made to preserve the industry in Illinois, where the legislature has this spring passed a bill for its regulation.
The first section of the bill provides:
It shall be unlawful for any person or persons to take or catch, by any means whatever, in any of the navigable waters within the jurisdiction of this State, any mussel, fresh-water clam or shell-fish from the first day of October to the first day of April (both dates inclusive) of each succeeding year.
The bill imposes upon any one who violates these provisions a fine of not less than $25, nor more than $100, or imprisonment in the county jail for a term not exceeding one year, or else both fine and imprisonment at the discretion of the court.
Another section provides that any one not a resident of Illinois, who takes clams, shell-fish, or mussels, without procuring a license, shall be subject to a fine of not less than $50, nor more than $100, or to imprisonment for one year, or to both penalties. The licenses may be procured on application and payment of $50 for each vessel to be employed, and they expire on the first day of October following their issuance. The amount received for these licenses is to be turned over to the State Treasurer at the end of each month and placed to the credit of the State Fish Protective Fund. No boat having more than two bars, each not exceeding sixteen feet in length, shall be used for this fishery, and the space separating the hooks on these bars is not to be less than eight inches.
Miss Carl, the artist who painted the portraits of the Empress and that of the Dowager Empress of China, states that she wears a diamond ring. When she shows this she apologizes for wearing it, stating that it had been given to her by the Viceroy, Li Hung Chang, saying that she, herself, sees no beauty in the sparkle of the diamond; for her there is more beauty in the soft, quiet tones of the pearl than in the brilliancy of the diamond.
During the Boxer War in China, the looting was carried on to so great an extent, that a French hotel-keeper is said to have obtained a basket of pearls, which he bought for a trifle, and which are said to have netted him very nearly $1,000,000.