lie along the coast of Venezuela and west to Rio Hacha on the Colombian
coast. This was the first part of the American mainland sighted by
Columbus and the quantities of pearls owned by the natives did much
to draw the tide of adventurers which set this way in the sixteenth
century.
The oysters are taken from reefs and bars about one mile from shore and
about the islands. The principal beds are at El Tirano, north-east,
and Macanao, north-west of the island of Margarita. There are fisheries
also at the neighboring Islands of Coche and Cubagua. About four
hundred sail-boats of from three to fifteen tons, employing two
thousand men, are constantly at work in these fisheries.
A French company purchased a concession about the year 1900 from a
Venezuelan to fish in this neighborhood. It was to pay the Venezuelan
government 10 per cent. of the profits as royalty and use divers and
diving apparatus so as to select the oysters and avoid waste of the
immature. Fishing by natives is done mostly by dredging with metal
scoops. It is estimated that upwards of $600,000 worth of pearls are
found about the island of Margarita per annum, most of them going to
the Paris market.
Exclusive rights have been granted a Venezuelan citizen by the local
government lately to exploit the Gulf of Cariaco for pearls and other
sea products. The contract is for twenty-five years. Certain advantages
are guaranteed by the government which is to receive fifteen per cent.
of the net profits of the enterprise.
About forty or fifty years ago several English companies conducted
profitable fisheries in the lower Gulf of Maracaibo and on the coasts
of the Goajira territory and Paraguana. They employed Indians as
divers. Revolutionary troubles during the last twenty-five years so
demoralized the Indians, that the industry was finally broken up.
Reports from authoritative sources indicate, that not only could
paying fisheries be established here, but that the interior is rich in
minerals and precious stones.
Until lately there have been few restrictions upon fishing along
the Venezuelan coast beyond a tax of fifty dollars imposed by local
authorities upon the buyers and the payment of fifteen bolivars ($2.90)
by each boat for a fishing permit at Margarita.
The oysters of this coast mature rapidly and like those of Ceylon live
but six or seven years. They are small and the shells are so thin that
they can be crushed between the fingers. They are of the Lingah type
and are named by some avicula squamulosa. The nacreous lining is also
very thin, but lustrous and beautifully iridescent. The pearls run
small and very many of them are quite yellow.
Many fine white pearls are found however, though they incline
frequently to a waxy luster and are often marred by chalky spots. Great
quantities of baroques, notably beautiful for color and orient, are
found. Round pearls with a china-like skin in many colors are also
quite common. The average size and quality is not equal to those of the
Indian waters, though it is much better than is generally credited, as
the traders in this country for some inexplicable reason have an idea
that Venezuelan pearls are necessarily poorer than others.
This notion has probably been fostered among American buyers by the
Parisian dealers who at present well nigh control the output of
these fisheries and naturally fear the diversion to a neighboring
market which now pays a heavy toll to Paris on pearls taken from this
continent. It is true an unusually large percentage of cracked pearls
is found among Venezuelans, and they lose perceptibly in weight after
being brought from the fisheries the loss averaging fully one-eighth of
one per cent., nevertheless many pearls of the finest quality are taken
from these fisheries. All pearls are subject to slight variations in
weight.
It was from the fisheries of Colombia that Philip II. of Spain received
the large pearl of 250 carats, about the size and shape of a pigeon's
egg, so often mentioned in the chronicles of precious stones.
The management of the pearl fisheries of the Colombia of to-day is
in the hands of the central bank of Colombia which is empowered to
transact business pertaining to property belonging to the government.
This institution holds a public auction and awards the lease of the
rights to fish for pearls, coral, etc., on the Colombian coasts of the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans, to the most desirable bidder. The lessee
must be governed by the rules and regulations laid down by the bank.
The lease is for five years and went into effect August 1st, 1906.
New pearl oyster-beds were discovered in 1903 in the Gulf of Campèche
near Coatzacoalcos and application was made by a Mexican to the
Mexican government for a concession to work them. There are extensive
beds, which are constantly fished, along the eastern coast of Lower
California from its junction with the United States to Cape San Lucas.
La Paz is the principal centre of the fisheries. An English syndicate
has a concession from the Mexican government which was lately renewed,
for fishing about La Paz. Pearls worth $350,000, among them many fine
black pearls, and five thousand tons of shells valued at $1,250,000,
were taken in 1904. This syndicate employs all the modern appliances.
Beds are known and worked from La Paz to and about the island of Loreto
on the east coast, and at the island of Tiburon over on the East side
of the gulf, and from Mazatlan all along the coast of Mexico proper to
the boundary line of Guatemala. These beds were discovered by Cortez in
1536 and were worked spasmodically for two centuries; then for a period
they were fished so constantly and thoroughly that the market was
over-loaded with pearls and the supply of oysters seriously diminished.
Of late years fishing has been again carried on systematically and with
sufficient judgment to prevent the immediate destruction of the beds as
before.
A pearl oyster-bed ten miles long has lately been located at the Punta
de Santa Cristoval. The Mexican season for fishing varies in localities
from May to November, or June to December. The day's work of the diver
commences at near the ebb tide and ends shortly after the beginning
of the flood tide, about three hours in all. Much fishing is done by
independent naked native divers, in a manner similar to that of the
Hindus and Arabs, but some of the large concessionaires supply their
divers with helmets and other modern appliances.
Schooners of various sizes having several boats, carry the fishing
parties to the banks and the men live on them through the entire
season. The daily catches are delivered to an armed boat which carries
the oysters ashore, where they are at once searched for pearls. These
when found are immediately sorted and valued, a percentage going to
the diver in addition to his wages, if he is a regular employee of the
Company.
The oysters are found adhering to rocks by the byssus, generally in
bunches, hinge-side down, curved side up and the shells slightly
parted. The diver cuts them loose with a knife and deposits them in
his basket or net. One hundred to a hundred and fifty is a good day's
work for a naked diver, but with the appliances now being introduced,
a diver in dress can raise fully double that number. It should be
remembered that there are elements of uncertainty and irregularity in
the catch of the meleagrina. As compared with the enormous and crowded
beds of the small varieties as they exist in the Gulf of Manaar and at
the island of Margarita, Venezuela, where they can be literally scooped
up, the scattered bunches of the meleagrina do not afford easy data for
reckoning averages.
On the coasts of China, Japan, Korea, some of the South Sea Islands,
the English Channel islands, the Canary islands, about St. Malo on
the coast of France, at Queen Charlotte's island and along the coast
of California from north of San Francisco to the border of Lower
California, at the Cape of Good Hope, India, Australia and New Zealand,
a shell-fish is taken which has considerable commercial value and
yields pearls to a limited extent.
It is called in this country abalone. In the Channel islands it
is known as the ormer. It is the Haliotis or Ear-shell. The Greeks
called it venus ear-shell and used it as a food, considering it most
nutritious. Old English writers praised it as a delicious morsel under
the name of ormond saying that it was bigger and infinitely better than
the oyster. This shell-fish attaches itself to the rocks by a flat,
disk-shaped foot and must be taken when the tide is low. The fisherman
can then insert a knife by stealth under the foot and taking the fish
unawares, destroy the suction. Otherwise the hold of the fish could not
be broken without destroying the shell. New Zealanders call the fish
itself the mutton fish.
The Japanese, Chinese and Indians of the Pacific coast have long used
it as an article of food. The shells are valuable on account of the
very beautiful nacreous lining which is exceptionally good material for
buttons and various ornamental purposes. The lining has an exquisite
play of colors in the richest tones of peacock greens and reds. There
are about seventy species of the Haliotis and the shells vary greatly
in size. The British ormer (H. tuberculata) is of small size, about
six inches long and is silvery. The shells are sometimes called in
trade aurora shells. After being well beaten to make them tender the
animals are used for food.
The ormer or auris marina was esteemed by the ancients as a very sweet
and luscious dish. The people of the Channel islands ornament their
houses with the shells and farmers use them to frighten the birds from
their corn-fields. They string several together and suspend them from
the end of a slender pole stuck in the ground. The wind swaying them,
makes a constant clatter. The Haliotis iris of New Zealand is green and
brilliantly iridescent. A Cape of Good Hope species (H. Mida), under
the epidermis is tinged with color, principally orange.
Some of the more beautiful species were formerly very abundant on the
coasts of China and Japan, but the constant use of the animal for many
years as a food stuff has made them less common there and the Chinese
and Japanese now obtain a large part of their supply from California,
where the haliotis or abalone, as it is called is taken in great
quantities. The two most beautiful species found on this coast are, the
Haliotis splendens, a magnificent shell of rainbow coloring in which
peacock green predominates, and H. rufescens, the lining of which is
red. When found, the latter is usually thickly incrusted and coated
with vegetation. The green and red range from seven to ten inches, the
latter being generally the larger.
Another variety, H. cracherodii, very dark green or black without, and
with no apparent beauty, has a small opalescent bit inside the shell
which is cut out and made into articles of jewelry. This is common in
crevices of rocks. A variety called bluebacks has a bright clayey blue
exterior. The Indians of the Pacific coast have used these shells as
material for jewelry and decoration for centuries, but not until the
button-makers of Europe and New York began to utilize them did they
become an item of importance among the exports of the Pacific coast.
Few pearls are found in the abalone but they yield a considerable
number of large rounded baroques and excrescences, rich and beautiful
in color and of fair luster, also odd-shaped pieces like blisters
matched and joined at the edges. The greens have a bronze appearance
and the reds and pinks are often iridescent. Quite a number of good
"peelers" are found among them. These are pearly formations which can
be improved by taking off one or more of the outer skins.
Pearl-fishing, principally by Greeks, has been carried on about the
west and south coast of Haiti, but lately the government has granted
a concession to four of its citizens covering nine years with the
privilege of renewal at the end of that period. This will prohibit
all others from fishing unless they rent the privilege from the
concessionaires.
To the south of the Philippines, pearl fisheries were worked by the
natives before the arrival of the Spaniards, and the industry is still
carried on, chiefly by antiquated methods. The coasts of the Sulu
islands, at Jolo and elsewhere and about the island of Mindanao, have
yielded many fine pearls and continue to do so. The shells from these
waters furnish very fine mother-of-pearl.
All things considered, the largest and best equipped fisheries in the
world to-day are those on the coast of Australia. Not as many pearls
are found as at Ceylon. The main object of fishing is the shell, which
is large, heavy, and furnishes the best quality of mother-of-pearl of
the white variety. From Charlotte's Bay on the north-eastern coast,
all along the northern coast and around to Exmouth Gulf on the western
coast, pearl oysters are abundant. Farther south at Sharks Bay, the
oysters are smaller and the pearls, though of good shape and luster,
run yellow. Shells from the coast of Queensland are sold as Sydney
shell; those from the northern territory of South Australia, as Port
Darwin shell, and from there to Exmouth Gulf on the western coast, they
are marketed as West Australian shell.
The fishing is carried on by organized companies having capital, and
every modern appliance of practical value is utilized. The divers fish
with the dress. The usual method of fishing is for a schooner of eighty
to one hundred tons to put out with a number of luggers of from eight
to ten tons. Each lugger is manned by a captain, a cook, one man at
the life-line, two men at the air-pumps and one diver. Each lugger will
average half a ton of shells per month ranging from 1600 to 2000 to the
ton. The pearls like the shells run white.
The Australians are not only pushing this industry along their own
coast, but are extending operations along the islands north toward the
equator, wherever it is possible. And wherever they go they carry with
them the best modern appliances and methods. Lately however operations
have been considerably curtailed in the Torres straits owing to the
enforcement of laws for the protection of divers.
Lack of men for diving caused some of the operators to use questionable
means to obtain a supply. Boats were sent through the South Sea among
the islands and aborigines, Chinese, and even European sailors, were
kidnapped and held in practical slavery. Many lives have been lost in
these fisheries and the evils connected with the industry became so
notorious that the government took action. It is probable that the
business will be reorganized and either conducted by the state or under
government supervision. Natives are now being trained to use the dress.
Few pearls are found and it not infrequently happens that as many as
fifteen to twenty tons of shells are raised without finding a single
pearl of value. At this time shells from these fisheries bring from
$500 to $750 per ton in the New York market. Helmets have been used to
some extent throughout the Pacific for a number of years, but many were
crude affairs, carelessly managed and the loss of life was as great as
by naked-diving. The training of the natives to the use of the more
modern appliances will however engender confidence and the probability
is that dress-diving will become general in the south seas wherever the
industry is organized.
As a rule the largest oysters and pearls, where there is a calcareous
foundation for the bed, are taken from the deeper waters, and it is
probable that as modern appliances are more generally used by the
larger organizations now taking hold of the industry, the fisheries
will be extended with good results in many localities to waters beyond
the shallows now fished. More systematic methods will prevent waste
and the destruction of the beds.
The English Colonial governments of India are doing much in this
direction. By keeping experts upon the ground, they have learned how to
fish without destroying the beds, and to fish when it is possible for
the oysters to contain pearls. Strict supervision and protection of the
beds result in more frequent fishings and greater returns to both the
government and the fishermen.
This example is being followed, and pearl fisheries are gradually
coming either under governmental supervision or into the hands of
concessionaires, whose large investment makes the preservation of the
beds a business necessity, whether they fish mainly for pearls or
shells.
The best pearls and the largest number are found usually in mature
shells which are distorted; it has been stated as a possibility, that
in the future some of the new rays will be used in fisheries where the
pearl is the main object of the fisher, to ascertain if the oyster
contains any before destroying it. M. Dubois of Lyons has experimented
with Roentgen rays for that purpose.
As the fish is enormously prolific it is more probable however that
effort will be directed instead toward the preservation of the mollusk
from the enemies and accidents which are occasionally greater than its
productiveness.
One of the greatest dangers in Indian waters to a bed of young oysters
is a little mollusk known locally in Ceylon as suran (Modiola). These
cluster in masses on the sea bottom and spreading over the surface of
the coral, crowd out the delicate young of oysters recently deposited.
The Japanese fisheries suffer from the occasional infection of the
waters by a weed, dinoflagellata gonyaulax. It accumulates in immense
quantities, causing a wide discoloration of the sea water and is very
destructive to an oyster-bed. It is called the red current or red tide.
So far no preventive or remedy has been found.
Hitherto the most general and fatal danger to oyster-beds has been the
ungoverned extravagance of irresponsible fishers who seek to harvest
in the present regardless of the future, but these are gradually being
made amenable to restrictive laws as authorities awake to the value of
the industry. A greater danger which threatens the unio of American
streams, is the pollution of the water by the discharge of the refuse
of factories and the sewage of cities into them. A mussel bed will
recover in time when denuded by fishers, but sewage and poison kills it
out entirely.
Although fresh-water pearl-bearing mussels are found in the streams of
many countries, only in the United States are they taken in sufficient
quantities to make the fishings important as an industry. They are
to be found throughout the Mississippi drainage area and in part of
that of the St. Lawrence. Few exist on the Pacific coast and those of
the Atlantic coast are generally inferior as pearl-mussels. There are
many varieties of the unio which yield pearls. Latin names are given
by different writers to distinguish them, but as scientists differ
in their classifications, the names are not always uniform and are
not sufficiently well established to be useful, descriptively, to the
general reader. In treating of the various kinds of pearl-bearing
unios of the United States therefore in these pages, the common names
by which they are known will as a rule be used with the scientific
names appended, as revised by the department of mollusks of the United
States National Museum.
From the times of Roman colonization until now, pearls have been taken
from the mussels of British streams. There are three varieties of
pearl-bearing mussels in Great Britain: Painter's mussel (U. pictorum),
the Swollen River mussel (U. tumidus) and the Pearl mussel (U.
margaritifera).
The first two occur only in the streams and ponds of England and Wales
and the pearls found in them are of inferior quality. The latter
inhabits the streams of Scotland and the northern counties of England
and to some extent are found in Ireland and Wales also. The shell is
oblong, rather flat and heavy and about five and one-half inches long.
The exterior surface is rough, and blackish-brown; the pearly interior
has a tint of flesh color mottled by stains of dull green. It was from
this variety the Perthshire Tay pearls were taken, which gained so
much notoriety in the middle of the eighteenth century when some fifty
thousand dollars worth were sent to London from this stream in three
years.
Scotch pearl-fishing was revived in 1860 and some fine ones were
sold to Queen Victoria, the Empress of the French, the Duchess of
Hamilton and others. Pearl-mussels have been found in Lochs Rannoch,
Tay, Lubnaig and Earn, also in the Don, the Leith and other streams.
Some are found in the Welsh streams, and the river Bann in Ireland
was noted for the fine pearls found in it. Many years ago there was a
pearl fishery at Omagh in the north of Ireland. An old writer claims
that Cæsar obtained pearls of such bigness in Britain that he tried the
weight of them by his hand.
The fishers wade for them in shallow pools, or thrust sticks between
the open valves, or drag branches over them, for as soon as anything
enters between the two shells they close upon it at once. The mussels
are found generally set up in the sand of the river-bed with the open
side, if the current is very strong, turned away from it. The custom
of the peasantry is to fish for them in the autumn after harvest.
Pearl-mussels are found also in Saxony, Bavaria, Bohemia, Mesopotamia,
Lapland, Canada, Labrador, the Hawaiian Island Oahu, Japan (especially
the anodonta japonica), China, the United States and Italy, in the
Gwaai and Shangani rivers of Southern Rhodesia, South Africa. Nowhere
are they found however in such quantities or in so many varieties as in
the United States. The number taken from the streams here of late years
has been so great that the shells have largely displaced the marine
Egyptian and have affected the demand for the better qualities of South
Sea mother-of-pearl. The pearls found in them also have been of such
quality and quantity that they now have an important place among the
jewels of the world.
Old records and the contents of Indian mounds show that the unio was
taken from the rivers by the aborigines for the pearls they sometimes
contained; but no wide interest in this possible wealth of the rivers
appears to have developed among their white successors until the
finding in 1857 of a large pearl weighing ninety-three grains at Notch
Brook near Paterson, N. J. It was afterwards sold to the Empress
Eugénie of France for $2500. This became noised abroad and immediately
multitudes began to search for pearls.
Mussels were gathered and destroyed by the million, few pearls being
found. The excitement subsided as the searchers learned how few got
adequate reward for their time and labor. They soon began to realize
that the finding of a pearl of value is usually preceded by the opening
of hundreds or thousands of shells containing none, and that in the
aggregate, the shells thrown away were worth more than the few pearls
found.
Another pearl hunt developed along the Little Miami River in Ohio from
the finding of several fine pearls near Waynesville in 1876. This
reached its height in 1878. In 1880, pearls began to come into the New
York market from the West and South. Immense beds have been fished in
the White, Wabash and Ohio Rivers in Indiana. In the summer of 1889
a number of fine pearls were found in the south-western corner of
Wisconsin, in Crawford, Grant, Lafayette and Green counties. Not only
were they notable for extraordinary luster, but many were of beautiful
color. The sale of some at prices which seemed fabulous to the people
of that section, when it became generally known, caused such a scramble
for them by the natives that the streams were rapidly denuded of
mussels, and that section has become of much less importance than
others since developed. Prairie du Chien is the center of the Wisconsin
market, from which point the shells are distributed to the button
factories.