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THE BOOK OF THE PEARL
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shell so that the resulting pearl may not become adherent to it by a deposit of nacre.1
Shortly
after Linnaeus communicated with the Swedish government and before his
death, it was learned in Europe that the art of producing "culture
pearls" by a somewhat similar process had been practised by the Chinese
for centuries.2 They used several forms of matrices or
nuclei, but principally spheres of nacre and bits of flat metal or
molded lead, which were not infrequently in conventional outline of
Buddha. In the spring or early summer, these were introduced under the
mantle of the living mollusk after the shell had been carefully opened
a fraction of an inch, and the animal was then returned to the pond,
or lake. The mollusk did its work in a leisurely way, like some people
who have little to do, and many months elapsed before it was ready for
opening and the removal of the pearly objects.
The
most satisfactory description we have seen of this process appears to
be that communicated nearly a century later to the London Society of
Arts by Dr. D. T. Macgowan,3 through Η. Β. Μ. plenipotentiary in China, from which this account is abridged and modified.
The
industry is prosecuted in two villages near the city of Titsin, in the
northern part of the province of Che-kiang, a silk-producing region.
In May or June large specimens of the fresh-water mussels, Dipsas plicatus, are
brought in baskets from Lake Tai-hu, about thirty miles distant. For
recuperation from the journey, they are immersed in fresh water for a
few days in bamboo cages, and are then ready to receive the matrices.
These
nuclei are of various forms and materials, the most common being
spherical beads of nacre, pellets of mud moistened with juice of
camphor seeds, and especially thin leaden images, generally of Buddha
in the usual sitting posture. In introducing these objects, the shell
is gently opened with a spatula of bamboo or of pearl shell, and the
mantle of the mollusk is carefully separated from one surface of the
shell with a metal probe. The foreign bodies are then successively
introduced at the point of a bifurcated bamboo stick, and placed,
commonly in two parallel rows, upon the inner surface of the shell; a
sufficient number having been placed on one valve, the operation is
repeated on the other. As soon as released, the animal closes its
shell, thus keeping the matrices in place. The mussels are then
deposited one by one in canals or streams, or in ponds connected
therewith, five or six inches apart, and where the depth is from two to
five feet under water.
1 "Proceedings of the Linnean Society of auf das Jahr 1772," Leipzig, Vol. XXXIV, London," October, 1905, p. 29. pp. 88-90.
2 See Grill, Abhandlungen der königlichen * "Journal of the Society of Arts," Vol. II, Schwedischen Akademie der Wissenschaften pp. 72-75.
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