The
original pearl finds in the Schuylkill date from half a century ago,
when they were secured by farmers who used the mussel shells in
removing hair from the hides of slaughtered pigs. During the
Mississippi pearling excitement in 1897, several persons from New York,
who were summering in Schuylkill County, searched the small streams for
pearl-bearing mussels with such success that within a short while many
farmers became enthusiastic hunters during their spare time. Half a
dozen or more men did very well, their catch amounting to thousands of
dollars' worth. Mr. Frank M. Ebert, of Quakake, has put most of his
spare time in the business in the last ten years, and has secured many
good pearls. It is estimated that the total catch in Schuylkill County
alone approximates $20,000 at local values. So actively has the search
been conducted "that at present few adult mussels of the pearl-bearing
species remain, and a day's work may result in finding less than a
dozen.
The
best price reported as received by a local fisherman was $200 for a
twenty-grain pearl in the year 1904. Many individual specimens have
been sold at prices ranging from $100 to $175. It is claimed that a
pearl sold by a fisherman in Schuylkill for fifty cents was later
marketed in Philadelphia for $125, and with slight mounting was
ultimately sold for $1600. The most attractive weigh from ten to
twenty grains each ; larger ones have been found, weighing up to
thirty-eight grains, but as a rule the luster is not so good as that
possessed by pearls of medium size. The common colors are dark blue,
pink, lavender, and white. A few are black and some are brown. The
brown pearls are seldom of value, owing to deficiency in luster.
In
Maryland pearls have been collected from the brooks near the head of
Chesapeake Bay, and especially in Kent and Cecil counties. These are of
almost every conceivable color, ranging from a clear white to a dainty
pink, and to very dark colors, especially bronze and copper. Most of
them are too small for commercial value, and only a few reach
sufficient size to command more than $5 or $10 each, but single
specimens have sold as high as $50.
Georgia
has yielded some pearls, chiefly in the vicinity of Rome, at the
junction of the Etowah and Oostanaula rivers. This is believed to be
the site of the Indian town Cofaciqui, where, in his memorable
expedition of 1540-1541, De Soto found the natives in possession of so
many pearls. The general news of finds in the Mississippi Valley
stirred up local interest in this region in 1897, and when the streams
were low and clear in the autumn many persons engaged in hunting the
mussels. An ex-sheriff of Rome is reported as having secured about
fifty pearls, lustrous but irregular. A few miles above Rome, a farmer
made a trial on Johns Creek, a tributary of the Oostanaula ;
