EUROPEAN PEARL FISHERIES 181
sought
for by expert fishermen in the interior districts, and were brought in
large quantities to the coasts for sale, the women and girls of all
classes, rich and poor, using them extensively in personal decoration.
The
celebrated Linnaeus left a detailed account of the method by which
mussels were caught in Sweden nearly two centuries ago. He wrote : "In
the summer season, if the water is shallow, the fishermen wade in the
stream and gather the mussels with their hands. Should the water be
deeper, they dive for the mussels and place such as they find in a
vessel made of birch bark, which they carry with them. Sunny days are
selected, because then they can see deeper into the water. But, should
this not suffice, they traverse the river on rafts which are painted
white beneath so that the bed of the stream may be illumined by the
reflected light. The men lie prone on the rafts and look down into the
depths so that they may immediately seize with wooden tongs the mussels
which they discover. Or else, hanging by their hands to the rafts, they
seize them in the water with their toes. If the water is too deep even
for this, they dive and feel around on the bottom with their hands
until it becomes necessary to rise again to the surface in order to
breathe. However, out of a hundred mussels, scarcely one contains a
good pearl ; but sometimes as many as twenty pearls of the size of a
grain of sand are found in one shell. Many of the larger pearls are
reddish or dark, but occasionally a beautiful white pearl is hidden
under such a covering ; although, naturally, it is rare that this is
altogether perfect. It has been noted that mussels seven years old
contain pearls ; and in each of two mussels eighteen years old, a pearl
was found attached to the shell."1
The list of streams in Sweden from which pearls were taken, as noted by Olaf Malmer, J. Fischerstein, and Gissler2
a century and a half ago, seems to cover nearly all the rivers and
brooks which flow from the mountains of this beautiful country.
In
Russia the love for the pearl has been almost as great as in Persia and
India. During the Middle Ages, pearls were worn upon the clothes of
nearly all well-to-do Russians. The great head-dresses of the women
were ornamented with them ; and they were used in decorating the
stoles, vestments, crosses, and the priceless relics in the churches.
The
pearl-mussel is found in very many of the Russian streams. It occurs
throughout Archangel, in most of the rivers which flow into the White
Sea, into Lake Ladoga, Lake Onega, and the Baltic Sea; and likewise in
the Volga watershed. Von Hessling states that east
1 Linnaeus, "Lach. Lapponica," Vol. II, pp. Akademie," 1742, Vol. IV, p. 240; 1759, Vol. 104-107.
XXI, p. 136, and 1762, Vol. XXIV, p. 64.
2 See "Abhandlungen der Schwedischen
