business holds out a tempting bait for the dishonest employee,
and, notwithstanding the utmost vigilance, thefts are frequently perpetrated by all classes, divers, boatmen, washers,
sifters, and even superintendents, who have been known to
extract the pearls from the washing-troughs by attaching a
viscous substance to the end of the canes used for punishing
delinquents for the same offence.
The most common varieties are sent to China, those of the
next higher quality are exported to Poland, South Germany,
Russia, and the Danubian provinces, where they are worn by
the peasantry. Oriental princes have been the readiest purchasers of the finest South American pearls; Goa, in India,
was once the greatest mart in Asia for pearls, as well as for
diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and other valuable gems.
Artificial pearls are made of small globes of glass lined with
wax and scales taken from the living fish, so as to preserve
the glistening hue.* Roman pearls differ from other imitations
in having the coating on the outside of the glass. A variety
of the smelt, inhabiting the Tiber, affords the Roman jeweller
with the means of making wax beads more closely resembling
the genuine pearl than do either the Venetian or the French
counterfeits.
* A method somewhat different from this consists in putting into the hollow
glass bulbs a mixture of liquid ammonia and the white substance of the scales of
certain fishes.
