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Ch. 6:Other Gems

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414
A POPULAR TREATISE ON GEMS.
and on the Continent ; around Southampton, in England, these mussels are known by the whimsical name of " old maids," and the inhabitants of the northern islands call them smuslin, and consider it a fine supper-dish, which is by no means unpalatable.*
I am informed by Mr. Plisé, who brought a considera­ble quantity of pearls from Panama, that he receives four dollars per grain in England, for those of good size and quality.
Pope Leo bought a pearl for eighty thousand crowns. Tavernier describes one belonging to the King of Persia, which is said to have cost one million six hundred thousand livres. Portugal has a pearl in her treasury of the size of a pear. Two Greeks, residing in Moscow, are in posses­sion of a pearl weighing twenty-seven and seven eighths carats.
For restoring Oriental pearls to their original lustre, which they lose in the course of time, the following pro­cess is resorted to in Ceylon : the pearls are allowed to be swallowed by chickens, which are then killed, and the pearls are an hour afterwards taken out of the stomach, when they are as white and as lustry as if just taken from the shell.
* The poet Cowper thus expatiates on the mussel: " Condemn'd to dwell Forever in his native cell ; Ordaiu'd to move where others please, Not for his own content or ease ; But toss'd and buffeted about, Now in the water and now out ; Yet in his grotto-work inclosed He nothing feels in that rough coat, Save when the knife is at his throat; Wherever driven by -wind or tide, Exempt from every ill beside."
Ch. 6:Other Gems Page of 515 Ch. 6:Other Gems
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