162 THE BOOK OF THE PEARL
a
byword in the north country. In their history of Westmoreland and
Cumberland/ Nicolson and Burn state that "Mr. Thomas Patrickson, late
of How of this county (Cumberland), having employed divers poor
inhabitants to gather these pearls, obtained such a quantity as he sold
to the jewellers in London for above £800." But in 1794 Hutchinson2 stated that none had been seen for many years past.
Pearl
fishing in Ireland was of some consequence in the seventeenth century.
Speaking of the Slaney River, Solomon Richards, in a description of
Wexford about the year 1656, said: "It ought to precede all the rivers
in Ireland for its pearle fishing, which though not abundant are yet
excellent, for muscles are daily taken out of it about fowre, five and
six inches long, in which are often found pearles, for lustre,
magnitude and rotundity not inferior to oriental or any other in the
world."3 In 1693 Sir Robert Redding wrote that there were
four rivers in the county of Tyrone in northern Ireland which abounded
in pearl mussels, all four emptying into Lough Foyle and thence into
the sea. They were also to be found in several rivers in the adjacent
Donegal County. Redding gave an interesting description of the fishery :
In
the warm months before harvest is ripe, whilst the rivers are low and
clear, the poor people go into the water and take them up, some with
their toes, some with wooden tongs, and some by putting a sharpened
stick into the opening of the shell ; and although by common estimate
not above one shell in a hundred may have a pearl, and of these pearls
not above one in a hundred be tolerably clear, yet a vast number of
fair merchantable pearls, and too good for the apothecary, are offered
to sale by those people every summer assize. Some gentlemen of the
country make good advantage thereof, and I myself, whilst there, saw a
pearl bought for £2, 10s. that weighed 36 carats, and was valued at
£40, and had it been as clear as some others produced therewith it
would certainly have been very valuable. Everybody abounds with stories
of the good pennyworths of the country, but I will add but one more. A
miller took a pearl, which he sold for £4, 10s. to a man that sold it
for £10 to another, who sold it to the late Lady Glenanly for £30,
with whom I saw it in a necklace ; she refused £80 for it from the late
Duchess of Ormond.
The
young muscles never have any pearl in them. The shells that have the
best pearls are wrinkled, twisted, or bunched, and not smooth and
equal, as those that have none. And the crafty fellows will guess so
well by the shell, that though you watch them never so carefully, they
will open such shells under the water, and put the pearls in their
mouths, or otherwise conceal them. Yet sometimes when they have been
taking up shells, and believing by such signs as I have mentioned, that
they were sure of good purchase, and refused good sums for their
shares, they found no pearl at all in them. Upon discourse
1 London, 1777, Vol. II, p. 24. " Joyce, "Social History of Ancient Ire-
2 "History of Cumberland," London, 1794, land," New York, 1903, Vol. II, p. 227. Vol. I, p. 573·
