Below the surface of the ocean, there’s a strange, enchanted world.
Living in the midst of its grandeur are most marvelous and delicate
creatures that ceaselessly toil to strew the ocean’s bed with lustrous
gems--pearls.
Nature provides for the denizens of the deep that make these beautiful
gems. The ocean pearl oyster or bivalve (_avicula margaritifera_) and
fresh water mussel (_unio margaritifera_) have wonderful homes--their
shells. Coarse, rough, rugged, often distorted on the outside, within
they are lined with smooth, softly-glowing, iridescent “mother of
pearl.” The membrane, attaching the bivalve to its shell, extracts lime
from the water, building the shell from the inside outward in successive
layers, preserving the finest nacreous secretions for the smooth inside
lining, thus protecting its delicate body.
In this comfortable home the mollusk is contented, but an enemy
sometimes attacks it by boring through its hard shell. Leucodore, clione
and other borers, parasitic or domiciliary worms work into the shell,
and instinctively the protecting nacreous fluid envelops the intruder.
This is the birth of the pearl. The intruder, now covered entirely with
the pearl-nacre, is constantly rolled and lapped about, and successive
layers of nacre are applied until in a few years a pearl of great size
and value is formed and awaits the hardy, daring pearl fisher.
Pearls were the first gems discovered and used as ornaments in
prehistoric ages. Found in their natural state in utmost perfection,
needing no cutting nor polishing, these glowing beads of the sea were
the first baubles of savages, tribes and nations. Today the pearl is the
favored gem of those who are surfeited with valuable jewels. It is
essentially a gem for the wealthy. The connoisseur, accustomed to the
possession of jewels, finds in its soft luster a grandeur above that of
all the sparkling stones.
Fancy pearls include all those of decided color, having a rare and
beautiful tint. “White pearls” include pure white and white slightly
tinted with pink, blue, green or yellow. Of these colored white pearls,
the delicate, lightly-tinted, pink pearl of fine color and luster known
as “rose” is most beautiful. Every white pearl is classified according
to its respective tint and thus its price is determined, the values
ranging in the order named above, from highest for pure white, to lowest
for yellowish-white.
What is Cork?
Cork is the outer bark of a species of oak which grows in Spain,
Portugal and other southern parts of Europe and in the north of Africa.
The tree is distinguished by the great thickness and sponginess of its
bark, and by the leaves being evergreen, oblong, somewhat oval, downy
underneath, and waved.
The outer bark falls off of itself if let alone, but for commercial
purposes it is stripped off when judged sufficiently matured, this being
when the tree has reached the age of from fifteen to thirty years. In
the course of eight or nine years, or even less, the same tree will
yield another supply of cork of better quality, and the removal of this
outer bark is said to be beneficial, the trees thus stripped reaching
the age of 150 years or more.
The bark is removed by a kind of ax, parallel cuts being carried around
the tree transversely and united by others in a longitudinal direction,
so as to produce oblong sheets of bark. Care must be taken not to cut
into the inner bark, or the tree would be killed. The pieces of cork are
flattened out by heat or by weights, and are slightly charred on the
surface to close the pores.
Cork is light, impervious to water, and by pressure can be greatly
reduced in bulk, returning again to its original size. These qualities
render it peculiarly serviceable for the stopping of vessels of
different kinds, for floats, buoys, swimming-belts or jackets,
artificial limbs, etc. Corks for bottles are cut either by hand or by
means of a machine. The best corks are cut across the grain.