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HABITAT OF THE PEARL OYSTER
Fine
shells, often containing very beautiful pearls, are taken off the
coasts of Tahiti, Gambier, and throughout the Tuamotu Archipelago,
lying between longitudes 130 degrees W. and 150 degrees W. The shells
are of the black-edge type, large and heavy. The nacre is thick and has
a particularly mellow luster; throughout this section both shells and
pearls rank among the best.
All
over the South Sea, pearl oysters are found about the islands and in
the lagoons within the atolls which stud it, but in quantities too
small in many places to induce capital to establish fisheries. Fishing
for them is confined therefore to native divers who are rewarded by the
occasional find of a few pearls, which often they sell at ridiculous
prices to the stray traders who may chance to come their way.
This
eastward journey now brings us to the Pacific coast-of the American
continent. Here the pearl-bearing mollusk is found on the shores of
Lower California, about the Islands of the Gulf of California, at
various points on the Mexican coast-line south to Acapulco and at
Panama. They exist also on the coast of
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