But
as to that author and Albert the Great and other writers upon the
generation of pearls, who have said that the oysters conceive them by
means of the dew which they suck in, and that according as the dew is
clear or cloudy the pearls also are translucent or dark, etc.,
etc.,—all this is a little difficult to believe; for daily observation
shows that all the pearls found in the same shell are not of the same
excellence, nor of the same form, the same perfection of color, nor the
same size, as they would or must be if they were conceived by the dew
all at one time. Besides this, in many of the islands the Indians go
fishing for them in ten or twelve fathoms depth, and in some cases they
are so firmly attached to the rocks in the sea that they can be
wrenched off only by main strength. Would it not be difficult for them
to inhale the quintessence of the air there? It seems then that it is
the germ and the most noble part of the eggs of the oyster which are
converted into pearls rather than any other thing; and the diversities
of size, color, and other qualities, proceed from the fact that some
are more advanced than others, as we see eggs in the body of the hen.1
The
old theory of dew-formed pearls was illustrated even as late as 1684 on
a medal struck in honor of Elena Piscopia of the Corraro family of
Venice. This bore an oyster-shell open and receiving drops of dew, and
underneath was engraved the motto "Rore divino" (By divine
dew). Even yet one hears occasionally from out-of-the-way places—as in
the instance reported by the American consul at Aden— of pearls formed
from rain or dew, notwithstanding that there seems to exist absolutely
no justification for it in scientific zoology.
Probably
the most popular theory entertained from the fifteenth to the
seventeenth century was that pearls were formed from the eggs of the
oyster. This was intimated by Chauveton in the quotation above given,
and it was also referred to by many naturalists.
In
an interesting letter, dated Dec. 1, 1673, and giving as his authority
the testimony of an eye-witness, "Henricus Arnoldi, an ingenious and
veracious Dane," Christopher Sandius wrote: "Pearl shells in Norway do
breed in sweet waters; their shells are like mussels, but larger; the
fish is like an oyster, it produces clusters of eggs; these, when ripe,
are cast out and become like those that cast them ; but sometimes it
appears that one or two of these eggs stick fast to the side of the
matrix, and are not voided with the rest. These are fed by the oyster
against her will and they do grow, according to the length of time,
into pearls of different bigness." 2 This possibly hit the
mark with greater accuracy than the observations of the "ingenious and
veracious Dane" warranted, for he seems to have had quite a different
idea as to the manner in which the pearls are "fed by the oyster against
"Benzoni, "Novae Novi Orbis Historiae," '"Philosophical Transactions," 1674, Να Geneva, 1578, pp. 161-163. 101, p. 11.
