is
communicable from one pearl to another. Not infrequently all the pearls
in a casket are attacked thereby, and thus become reduced in a short
time to dust.
As
regards the classic story of Cleopatra swallowing recklessly for a
wager one of her immensely valuable Pearl ear-rings, dissolved in
vinegar, competent medical authorities assert that no acid which the
human stomach could endure is capable of entirely dissolving a pearl,
even after prolonged maceration therein. Barbot, on trying the
experiment, found that the outer layer was reduced to a jelly, whilst
that beneath was not at all affected. No doubt the wily Queen swallowed
the pearl whole, in some potation more pleasant than vinegar ; feeling
secure of its recovery within a short time, undamaged. And she invented
the fiction of its instantaneous, and complete dissolution, (which
rested entirely on her own testimony), in order to win the wager.
Concerning the Pearl—Unio—Marbodus says :—
" Auget opus idem sese reverenter habentes ;
Omnibus in causis dans persuasoria verba."
Archbishop Trench has described with poetic sweetness the fanciful formation of a Pearl by natural means :—
" A dewdrop, falling on the wild sea-wave,
Exclaimed, with fear, ' I perish in this grave ' ;
But, in a shell received, that drop of dew
Unto a Pearl of marvel'ous beauty grew,
And, happy now, the grace did magnify
Which thrust it forth—as it had feared—to die ;
Until again, ' I perish quite,' it said,
Torn by rude divers from its ocean bed ;—
Oh, unbelieving ! so it came to gleam
Chief Jewel in a Monarch's diadem."
The Pearl " of purest ray serene " (poetically), is practically, according to the National Druggist, a prosaic
