In
recent years the development of manufacturing industries in Saxony and
the resultant pollution of the water has greatly reduced the abundance
of the mollusks and consequently the output has been much restricted.
The average annual yield in the twenty years ending in 1879 was 163
pearls; in the twenty years ending in 1899 it was 66 pearls, and in the
six years ending in 1905 the annual average was 58 pearls. Owing to
high water, there was no fishing in 1888; and with a view to permitting
the resources to recuperate, the fishery was suspended from 1896 to
1899, inclusive. Omitting these five years, the average yield during
each season in the two decades ending 1899 was 88 pearls.
At
the end of each season, the pearls secured are turned over to the
director of forestry for the district of Auerbach; by him they were
formerly sent to the royal cabinet of natural history, or to the royal
collection at Dresden, but since 1830 they have been sent to the royal
minister of finance, by whom they are sold each year. The total
proceeds from these sales now amount to about 55>00° marks.
In
former times, according to Dr. Nitsche, it was customary to use these
pearls in making royal ornaments. This was the origin of the famous
Elster necklace, consisting of 177 pearls, now in the art collection
in the Grüne Gewölbe in the palace at Dresden. Another assortment in
that collection consists of nine choice, well-matched pearls, weighing
140 grains. For a necklace of Saxon pearls, the property of a duchess
of Sachsen-Zeitz, the sum of 40,000 thalers ($28,400) is said to have
been refused.
In
Prussian Silesia the pearl-mussel is found in the upper tributaries of
the Oder, especially in Bober River from Löwenberg to the sources among
the foot-hills of the beautiful Riesengebirge, in the Lu-
