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THE PEARL
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carved
from the Queen Conch have delighted feminine eyes of almost every race.
The Pearly Nautilus decks many a dainty lady's table and is wrought
into a thousand quaint conceits. The silky byssus of the Pinna has been
woven into fabrics of such fineness as to be thought worthy of
acceptance by Popes and princes.
Before
Europe knew of their existence, the people of China and Japan, the
Maoris of New Zealand, the Indians of our Pacific coast and the brown
skinned natives of far-off islands of the Southern Seas, were
delighting themselves with the magnificent coloring and iridescence of
the Haliotis even as ancient Greece and Rome made ornaments from the
"Venus Ear-shell," as they called it, brought from the ruder coasts and
islands further west. In these later days the costly outer garments of
proud dames are ornamented with buttons cut from the same resplendent
shell. But of all the beautiful things old ocean pays as tribute to the
adventurous spirit of man, the pearl-oyster and the gem found
sometimes in it are most precious.
From unknown times when man discovered them until now, mother-of-pearl shells and
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